The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E7: Eilís Runs the Ball Barn

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Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

Hey girlfriends, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes conversations about transphobia and descriptions of state violence against trans people.

There's also some pretty graphic explanations of some surgical procedures if you're feeling squeamish about that kind of thing.

And as per usual, we'll be swearing.

If you do listen, you'll hear the incredible story of how two trans women formed a clinic in a tractor shed to help others and pay their rent.

If you don't, though, no worries, there's plenty more episodes for you to listen to.

It's morning in Philadelphia, USA, sometime in the early noughties.

Ailish and Willow are getting ready for something big.

Willow's like, all right, where are we doing this?

And I'm like, my bedroom.

She's like, we are not doing this in your bedroom.

And I'm like, why not?

She's like, because I need to position myself between your legs.

There is no place for me to do that in your bedroom.

We're doing it in the reclining chair.

Ailish and Willow are sisters.

They weren't born as sisters, but they've chosen each other.

Ailish lives with another member of her queer family, Jenny, who she calls her adoptive trans mom.

And Jenny has a favorite chair.

She loves this reclining chair.

She sits in this reclining chair all the time.

That's the reclining chair in question.

It's situated in their mother's living room, which is notably

not sterile.

And this matters because what the sisters are about to do is an orchiectomy, a surgery to remove Alicia's testicles.

Yes, girlfriends, we're going there.

So strap in.

It's about to get intense and graphic.

So we create a sterile feel.

We run the pressure crooker for the autoclave.

An autoclave is basically a steam cleaner on steroids.

And the pressure cooker, well, that's the thing your nan uses to cook her beef stew.

But what is actually important to know is that Willow is a recent medical graduate.

And she's got Eilish juiced up on anesthetics, thank God.

Legs akimbo in this treasured reclining chair.

I'm like lying there in pain because it's a weird feeling.

She's about halfway through and then I hear, hear, oh shit, that ain't good.

I'm like, what?

She's like, hold on a second, the electroquadry pen's dead.

That's a medical device that's used to stop bleeding.

And so it's really the last thing that should stop working.

Oh no, this gets so much worse.

So much worse.

Spoiler alert, Alicia's right.

This surgery does not go well at all.

But it would be the first of many.

Ailisha and Willow would go on to help other trans women get the medical care they desperately needed.

And they'd do it not from their mother's living room in Philadelphia, but from a remote tractor shed in the Pacific Northwest.

This shed would become the headquarters of the Trans Health Initiative and the stuff of legend.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend Spotlight, where we tell stories of women winning.

Today, Ailish runs the ball barn.

Before we get into what happened during Ailisha's surgery about to go very wrong, let's wind back to the early 90s.

Ailish Neilonaghan was a punk running with a riot girl crew.

And when she came out as trans, the reaction was mixed.

Early 90s transition was difficult.

Some of them were assholes, some of them weren't.

Some of the people in my family did not necessarily approve.

And I was kicked out of the house with nowhere to go.

She needed to find a new crew and a new home.

But this was before social media existed.

In its stead were mailing lists on ancient text messaging systems.

And when she was around 20, Alicia got on one for trans kids, run by a woman named Jenny.

You know, we used to joke that Jenny knew all the trans kids on the internet.

We were all on her mailing list.

And the reason why she did it was because, you know, when she was coming up, there was no one there for her.

She had transitioned in like the early 80s.

So she wanted to make sure that kids didn't have to go through the same pain that she went through.

How does that end up evolving into a real in-person relationship?

I went and called Jenny up and I'm like, Jenny, kicked out of the house.

And she's like, fine, you can sleep on my sofa, but only for like a couple of weeks.

Thanks, Jenny.

I slept on her sofa and I actually started paying bills because I got a job almost immediately.

And she's like, fine, you can stay.

Oh, so it kind of became became like a mutual aid.

Oh, yeah, it was absolutely mutual aid.

She was older.

She had health problems.

So, you know, I would cook and clean and stuff for her.

And she kind of became my adopted trans mom.

When I least started down what was a very long road to get official gender-affirming health care, Jenny knew what shortcuts to take.

I called up.

Jenny and she's like, there's a doctor in South Philadelphia to just go to.

And every month I would go pay, I think it was $40 to go get an injection.

Like people would go on what's called meximone trips, where a friend of theirs would go to Mexico for a holiday and come back with an entire suitcase full of estrogen because you could get it over the counter there.

Yay.

So that was the process, you know, sneaky.

Enter Willow.

We're not using her real name, by the way, for safety reasons, but she was that DIY living room surgeon.

She was also one of Jenny's trans kids.

So she had just graduated graduated from medical school and was in her internship.

She was going to come visit Jenny.

And I was walking home and there's this piece of shit Camaro out front.

God, she was notorious for buying shit cards.

I'm like, how the hell is that thing even on the road?

Go walk into the house and there's Willow.

And then we just became friends.

Alicia just got laid off as a software developer.

This was way before big tech and the dot-com bubble had just burst.

I had a whole lot of time and I had fuck all to do.

I'd been on eight years of spheronolactone, which is it reduces the amount of testosterone that's uptaked into your body.

I hated being on that drug.

Was it uncomfortable to be on the drug?

You have to pee constantly.

And I just wanted off of it, right?

And I'm like, hey, Willow, got a question for you.

So orchiectomies, how hard are orchiectomies?

And orchiectomies are removal of the testicles.

Now, there's two ways that they do this.

One is through the belly.

And that is not something that's normally done.

And the other, much more common, is through the scrotal sac.

And Willow's like, well, it's not that hard.

We're just like, have you ever done one?

No.

Would y'all like to?

Look, I'll buy all the supplies.

Everything will be grand.

And she's like, let me think about it.

She gets back to me like a week later.

She shows up and comes out with like a two or three page photocopy.

I'm like, what's that?

And she's like, how to do the damn thing.

I'm like, okay.

So we go and the next morning, we wake up early.

Now, I'm living in Jenny's house.

Jenny knows that we're going to do this.

She's like, you're going to screw yourself up.

God, we grant.

Now hold my beer.

You know what they say?

Mom is always right because we know exactly how this goes down.

Eilish in Jenny's recliner chair and Willow with the electrocortary pen in hand.

That's just stopped working.

She's like, okay,

so we have a few choices here.

I can stitch you up, bring you to the hospital, and, you know, they'll do whatever.

I can stitch you up.

and we'll come back at this another day or i can just keep going and i'm like i am not going through this again no no no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's like, okay, if we do, you have to be real careful.

And I'm like, we'll do.

So she continues the surgery.

Now, the best part of the story was after the surgery, we had all cleaned up and Jenny, she comes downstairs and she's hungry.

Now,

one of the things about these surgeries is there's leftovers.

Oh.

What do you do with the leftovers?

Probably leave them on her recliner chair.

No, no, no, no, no.

I stuck them in a Ziploc bag because I'm going to make a lucite block out of it, a paperweight.

That's going to be hysterical.

So I stuck them in the freezer.

Jenny walks down and she's like,

are you okay?

And I'm like, oh, I'm grabbed.

Jenny walks over to the freezer and she's like, there's any of the taquitos left.

And she pulls out the Ziploc bag and she's looking at it.

She's like, what is this?

Some of your hippie food?

And I'm like, Jenny, put those back.

and she looks at them and she screams and drops them on the floor

storms over to a reclining chair flops herself in it and she's like you better have cleaned up your room after this will is like out the door and she just kind of snorts and i just glare at her jenny's like what And I just looked at her reclining chair and she's like, for fuck's sake,

I will never be able to eat anything out of the freezer.

And I don't even want to be sitting in this chair now.

I'm like, I love you.

Please don't murder me.

Oh, my God.

You really were her child.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now,

most orchiectomies are done for cis men who have testicular cancer, right?

So the way they teach you how to do the bandage is you wrap the scrotal sack around the penis.

Problem.

If you are a trans woman who's been on estrogen for a certain amount of time, that is not going to work.

So Willow did the wrapping the way that the book said.

And like the next day, the wrapping just falls apart.

Next thing Ailish knows, she's got the mother of all infections.

So she books it to the emergency room in desperate need of some official medical assistance.

There's this thing that emergency departments will sometimes do, which is called gomer.

Get out of my emergency room.

The staff basically tell Ailish to get lost.

The triage nurse was like, Yeah, this is obviously drug-seeking behavior.

And I'm like, penicillin.

I don't even care if you give me painkillers.

All I want are antibiotics.

I obviously had an infection.

And like the security guard pushed me out of there.

They didn't even kind of look.

No, no, no, no.

My God.

About four days later, I couldn't sit up.

So Jenny was like, you are going to the hospital now.

Put on some clothes.

I couldn't get jeans on.

She had brought me this, like, you know, the 90s flowing hippie skirts.

So I put one of those on.

She gets me in her car, drives me to an emergency room.

Like the nurse is asking me, when was the last time you had your period?

And I'm like, I've never had one.

She's like, why?

And I just went, flip the skirt up.

And she just looks and she's like, Okay, Percocet or morphine.

And I'm like, Morphine, please.

And they had to go and they had to debride the wound and clean everything out.

And it was not pleasant.

But I was in there for seven days.

Wow.

Yeah.

Like, the doctor was like, Yeah,

had you come in later, you would have died.

It's wild.

And then, on like a personal level, you were coming out of that emergency room in deep, deep pain.

Oh, yeah.

And you weren't getting the care, like the basic love and humanity that should be awarded to anybody who goes into one of these institutions.

I didn't want love or humanity.

I wanted fucking antibiotics.

I didn't want to die.

And the reality is, is that that hospital, because of how they treated me in the emergency room, I was very reluctant to go the second time.

I almost died because of that.

And this is not abnormal.

It's this thing that trans folks have been dealing with for years.

There has been, for

as long as I've been alive,

a

reluctance for trans people to trust the medical profession because the fact is the medical profession abuses us.

They abuse us through their standards of care by treating us like children, by assuming that we need their psychosexual history bullshit in order to get the medical stuff we need in order to live our lives.

It was common in the 90s and still today for trans people to face invasive questions around things like their sexual experiences to even get evaluated for health care.

And then even after that, they're still treating you like crap.

And this is not unusual for any

person who's either a sexual minority, a racial minority, because doctors are not immune from society, right?

Luckily, Ailish did manage to access the treatment she needed before it was too late.

And that was that.

I had to have the wound packed for two months.

It was not pleasant.

And, you know, we went, well, live and learn.

I survived Osbrand.

But that experience is yet another confirmation that as a trans woman, there are no guarantees that medical institutions will keep you safe.

I have literally had Willow give me stitches before I would go to a doctor again.

Willow herself is actually about to start a residency to become an abortion doctor.

And she hears some stories about a group of women in late 60s, early 70s Chicago.

They're called the Jane Collective.

And what they did was they provided abortions for people who needed it.

They did this knowing full well that abortion was illegal and they had to be real sneaky about it.

And Willow's like, I got an idea.

These people are cool as shit.

We should do something like that for trans folks.

After the break, Willow and Ailish do

something like that for trans folks.

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Stop settling for weak sound.

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Hit the town with the ultra-durable LG X-Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go.

Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it.

The future of sound is now with LG X-Boom.

And for a limited time, save 25% at LG.com with code FALL25.

Bring the boom.

X-Boom.

I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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I've got you.

I've got you, got you, I've got you.

After that fateful orchiectomy, Willow and Ailish both moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Willow's new abortion residency is based out there, and Ailish is following a then-girlfriend who's craving the quiet life.

It's a beautiful place.

Imagine rugged coastlines, lush, tall forests, and towering mountains.

If you've ever watched the Twilight movies, you kind of know the landscape.

More timber than tech.

Yeah, there's not a lot of programmer jobs out here.

If I wanted to go be a logger, I could do that, but I really don't want to go be a logger.

So what am I going to do here?

I'm like outside talking to Willow one day and I'm just like, you know, we're running out of money and Willow was like, well, do you think you can do electrolysis?

Electrolysis is the old way that we use to remove hair.

Electrolysis uses a small electric current to permanently destroy hair follicles.

It can take anywhere between 50 to 500 hours of treatment to get the job done.

That's basically a full-time job for Eilish.

I'm like, oh, I'm sure I could figure it out.

And she's like, all right, here's what I'll do.

I'm going to buy you an electrolysis machine.

Practice on yourself.

What we could do is I can start a clinic up.

We'll offer orchiectomies for a low cost.

And when when folks come for an orchiectomy, they can stay here.

And you can do like electro on them.

All power to them.

They're diving headfirst into permanent hair removal and orchiectomies, which are surgeries to remove testicles.

That's two major healthcare options that they can offer their community.

But trans people are one of the communities in the US who are most likely to experience discrimination in housing and employment.

Many simply can't afford the healthcare that they need.

And especially back then, when an orchiectomy at a regular clinic was about $2,500 for a 45-minute procedure, what Ailish and Willow want to do is provide these operations on the cheap, charging on a sliding scale from zero to $500,

which is a big deal.

I'm like, that...

actually doesn't sound like a bad idea.

And she was like, well, you know,

I figured out the problems with my orchectomy and kind of what we did wrong first is you know instead of doing that really screwed up wrapping situation we do a compression bandage against the body and second we put in drains third we give people prophylactic antibiotics

which is like the smart thing to do.

And, you know, they got checkups twice during their stay.

So they had to stay for seven days just in the area.

And Willow would go and check up on them and change bandages and stuff i'm like that sounds fine can you walk us through the process of setting up the clinic and building it so we had no idea where we were going to build a damn thing we had no idea so we are living in a rented farmhouse in the middle of the olympics in washington state

on a 256 acre farm that the owner still lives on the farm.

His son still lives on the farm.

So we're kind of of doing things right underneath our landlord's nose.

And

we're like, okay, where are we going to build this?

And Willow was like, well, there's this tractor shed that you have.

Now, a tractor shed, for those who don't know, is a three-sided building with a roof.

And it's where you park tractors and farm implements.

So the week before our first surgery, we're just banging this out.

I learned how to tile that week.

Willow had been, been

to go on eBay and find old medical equipment.

So like this electric pottery from the 80s that's like insanely huge, but still works.

We had an autoclave, an entire procedure table.

It was swank.

You know, it was not like, you know, shady, shady done in a hotel room.

This was pretty swank.

Yeah, because when you say a tractor shed, I'm picturing something really kind of farmyard animals around you.

No, I know the guy who moved in after me, and he used it as his office.

And I guess now it's used as an FDA chicken slaughtering room.

Oh, God.

FDA-certified chicken slaughtering room, which I find hysterical.

I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere, but I just can't.

There is it.

There's absolutely a joke in there, and I'll not make it, but I will allow so many other people to make it.

After only a week of tractor shed renovations, the Trans Health Initiative is ready for its first surgery.

Her first patient was a friend of mine.

You know, everything went perfectly fine.

The word spreads fast and they opened their doors to more patients, but cautiously.

I was probably a little bit more paranoid than I really needed to be.

But, you know, we were doing this without medical insurance because it wasn't a requirement and honestly, we couldn't afford it.

Without business license, which we didn't need because we made less than 14,000 a year.

So we were doing this like real under the radar, real quiet, right under everyone's noses.

Yes, the clinic's under the radar.

And it started off as a bit of a DIY mission, but the whole thing is actually totally above board.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely, perfectly legal.

You know, I am following all the guidelines set upon me by the Board of Health and the laws of that seat.

So if I were a patient and I've just arrived, can you kind of take me through what's happening to me?

Sure.

So we're actually going to start earlier.

You would email me and I would kind of email you back and I'd kind of do a sniff test because there were some people who were not trans women asking for this.

I had one guy, he was like, I have cheated with my brother's wife and he will not trust me again unless I am castrated.

And if you do not do this, I will do this to myself.

And like, look, you know, I'm all for body autonomy but that's not what i'm set up for man i can't help you and then i would ask you for a letter from a therapist then i would call up willow and say okay i got a patient in uh when are you free and she'd look at her calendar give me a free date and i'm like okay you were to show up at this date here

wear comfortable shoes because it's a gravel driveway and it's in the middle of the oregon coast range it rains a lot i had someone show up in stilettos and i was like oh honey

wrong footwear.

I kind of love it.

Yeah.

What would happen is you'd show up.

Willow would give you a quick medical examination.

She would talk to you and go, you know, what the surgery entails, you know, the risks of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, it was kind of amazing because you see trans women at their most vulnerable and they're most scared and they're most empowered at the same time.

We would say, okay,

here's script for Vicodin.

That's a drug used to treat moderate to severe pain.

And then here's script for moxicillin.

That's a penicillin antibiotic for the aftermath.

You're going to go into town and you're going to bring that all back and you're going to take the vicodin in front of us.

They'd get back, they'd take it in front of us and we'd say, okay, time to get undressed.

And we'd start the procedure.

And my job during the procedure was to hold your hand and tell you very long stories in a very, very radio announcer voice.

And sometimes I would tell jokes.

They would be very long, very boring jokes.

My repertoire of dad jokes is amazing because I had to talk like this and make sure that you were nice and calm and not paying attention to the fact that both your testicles were being removed through a small hole in your scrotum.

Okay, give me an example.

I'm a patient.

Okay, ready.

So a mushroom walks into a bar and says, hey, bartender, I'd like a drink.

The bartender looks at the mushroom and says, no, get out of here.

We don't serve your kind.

And the mushroom goes, hey, why not?

I'm a fungi.

Like, these were not good jokes.

They were not designed to be good.

They were designed to keep your attention.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It worked.

And your voice is very soothing.

Oh, I had to learn the soothing voice because, again,

things being pulled through parts of your body that aren't generally supposed to be pulled through.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You need to be soothed.

Yeah,

you're feeling it.

And then when we hit the electrocottery, you're smelling it too.

Oh, no.

Yeah, no, and that is not necessarily a good smell.

No.

Something's cooking.

Yeah, bodily, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Ailisha and Willow had certainly come a long way from their disastrous first orchiectomy.

They're doing good, clean medical work.

Zero infections.

Zero infections.

There you go.

Were the authorities interested in what you guys were doing with the clinic?

They weren't at first.

Now, what had happened was said woman who showed up in the stilettos

went back to her doctor and her doctor was examining her and says, oh, you got anorchiectomy.

She's like, Yes.

And he said, Where'd you get that?

It's very nice work.

And she said, Up a logging road in a barn with two trans women.

Now, while technically correct,

when a physician hears this, what he's going to do is he's going to call the board of health.

And I had geese

and the geese start

cracking away.

I'm like, what the hell's going on?

Because that sounds like someone's coming up the drive.

And I look out and there's a blue Ford Taurus.

Now, for your listeners in the late 90s, early 2000s, if you see a blue or black or brown Ford Taurus, that's a cop car.

That is a government car.

So I went, what the fuck?

And then I see this kind of gouty older woman get out of the car in this tall, skinny bean pole of a man and they're in their kind of frumpled government clothes.

And I'm like, that is not FBI.

Those are not cops.

They are not dressed like detectives.

That is dressed like bureaucrat.

And I come out to the porch and I go, can I help you?

And they go, we're looking for Willow.

I'm like, why are you looking for Willow?

She's like, we're here to examine the clinic.

After the break, the fate of the clinic hangs in the balance between the Board of Health and a potentially incriminating plastic cup filled with balls.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washablesofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

That means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Stop settling for weak sound.

It's time to level up your game and bring the boom.

Hit the town with the ultra-durable LGX Boom portable speaker and and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go.

Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it.

The future of sound is now with LG X-Boom.

And for a limited time, save 25% at LG.com with code FALL25.

Bring the boom.

X-Boom.

I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal.

Are there two sides to every story?

Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in the girlfriend on Prime, a psychological thriller that will make you question everything you think you know.

Laura has the dream job, the perfect husband, and a son she'd die for.

But when her beloved Daniel brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Is Cherry the sweet, innocent girl she appears to be?

Or is there something more manipulative beneath the surface?

And how far will a mother go to protect her son?

Also starring Lori Davidson, the girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems and everyone has something to hide.

Don't miss the girlfriend, streaming now exclusively on Prime.

Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

The Board of Health has just arrived on Ailisha's doorstep.

I go back in the house and I page Willow, 911.

She's like, what?

You just got me out of something at work that I need to be in.

And I'm like, well, the Board of Health is here and they would like to examine the clinic.

She's like, really?

And I'm like, yeah, really.

And Willow says, all right, just show them the place.

The night before, it had rained something fierce.

It was muddy and slippery.

So Ailisha and Willow had to carry their patient into the house to recover.

She was a bit of a lightweight and was passed out on Vicodin.

Some of the cleanup could surely wait until the next morning when the Board of Health had come knocking.

So I go out and I'm like, follow me, wipe your feet on the mat.

Do not track mud into my clinic.

So I wipe my feet.

I go into the clinic.

They walk in, muddy feet.

Okay, this is bureaucrats trying to show my place.

I get it.

I get it.

So I walk in.

They're like, where do you keep the narcotics?

And I'm like, what narcotics?

You use narcotics for this.

And I'm like, yeah, we do.

and what happens is they get a script and they go into town and then they take in front of us well where do you keep the script pads we don't the doctor brings the script pad with her takes it away autoclave logs are here these are my autoclave batch test strip numbers here you go and they're like business license and i'm like we don't make more than 14 000 a year but i also do electrolysis there's the business license everything they challenge her on eilish has the perfect answer to They had me kind of backed up into the room and like all the way in the back was the cottery machine.

And I looked to my right and I looked down and there's a specimen cup.

Oh.

Remember when I said the surgery has remains?

Well, lightweight from the night before wanted to keep her remains.

And I'm like, great.

And then she's like, but I need help into the house.

So I helped her and I forgot the damn remains.

And they're behind the electric cottery.

And I'm like, fuck.

So

government bureaucrats generally don't like dealing with us.

And if you're trying to get them to go away, the easiest way to do is to raise your voice and say the word trans very loudly.

I just started saying,

hey, you knew guys, I wouldn't be doing this if the Board of Health actually treated trans folks fairly.

And they're like, oh, they start stuttering.

That's the wrong department.

And I'm like, I don't care if it's the wrong department.

You guys are in my surgery for no apparent reason whatsoever.

You've tracked mud on the floor.

You're giving me a bunch of grief.

And like, you know, when are you guys going to start doing trans stuff fairly?

And trans, trans, trans, trans, trans.

And they got really uncomfortable looking.

And I'm like, go away, go away, go away.

You are not going to look behind the autoclave.

You are not going to see the specimen cup with testicles in it.

So they didn't say it.

Thank Christ.

And they went away.

And I grabbed the testicles and I go and I hand it to lightweight.

And I'm like, here, you forgot something.

So months later,

they ding us on one thing.

They said, yes, the clinic was all perfectly legal, except there was mud on the floor of the surgery.

The cheek.

Even when the authorities were actively looking for mistakes, they couldn't find anything apart from the mud they dragged in themselves.

The clinic was that professional and safe.

And so Ailisha and Willow are able to carry on in that converted tractor barn, providing health care to trans women from all over the country.

What did you enjoy most about this whole clinic adventure?

I enjoyed the look

in the eyes of other trans women when they realized that there were no cis folks involved, no trans masks involved, no one but other trans women involved,

and that they could go and do this or something like this.

Look, I'm an Irish-American kid from Jersey, Willows,

trashy and pickup driving.

And if we can do this shit, Jesus, kids, you know, go get yourself a little bit of education.

And trust me, you're going to be grand.

Just don't be afraid, right?

And that's the thing.

Like, I think a lot of times trans women, especially, we're afraid to kind of do things because

if we get in trouble, we're fucked.

How many of these surgeries did you guys do?

I think it was around 14.

Wow, that's amazing.

The clinic closed its doors after 18 months.

Willow and Ailish were burnt out.

juggling multiple jobs and just needed a change.

Doing trans healthcare is wonderful, but it's also kind of a drag, especially as a trans person, you can't emotionally distance yourself from that.

After the clinic, we told no one for 20 years.

Why?

You know, I'd love to say that we started the clinic up for noble reasons, but the reality is that I was poor.

And Willow wanted to help.

And I was like, oh, here's a way to actually

be able to pay my rent and afford my box of Annie's mac and cheese that I eat once a day and, you know,

be able to actually do something for folks.

Yeah, I mean, affording your box of Annie's mac and cheese, obviously it's super important.

But also, I mean, you were helping people, weren't you?

It's what you did was make care accessible.

I never like focusing on that because I don't know.

I have complex feels feels about that because, like, you know, I don't think that there was some freaking saintly goal to it.

I come from this entire punk ethos of not having heroes.

And hero worship makes me really uncomfortable.

I am a dumb schlub from Jersey with a high school diploma that just figured this out and just was not afraid to get in trouble.

The

important things that people do are done in silence.

And they are done behind the scenes.

And I never wanted kudos for this.

Like, Willow still doesn't want kudos for this.

She doesn't want to be known, period.

And the reason why is because, you know, you help people because you're morally offended.

Because you cannot sit there and stand by and watch what is happening.

I think what people are doing is way more important and should be celebrated more than the people themselves.

Yeah, celebrate the work.

Yes.

And those of us who like to celebrate people on the side can whisper your name quietly.

It's going to make me feel weird, but whatever.

Fair enough.

Me and Willow have a phrase that we like to say, be the cockroach.

Cockroaches are very hard to kill.

They don't need a lot.

They need a nice kind of warm place to sleep that's a little dark.

They do a lot of things under the noses of like, you know, those humans that are living in that nice little apartment in Williamsburg.

You know, if you can learn what you need to survive

and learn what you need to do to do the work you need to do and keep that as minimal as possible,

there's a lot you can do.

So instead of trying to do more and more and more, solve a problem that's in front of you, right?

There was a problem in front of me.

We could solve it easily.

We built it in a fucking barn for Christ's sake.

It wasn't that difficult to do.

You know, read the instruction book, and there you go.

But if you

look at things as like, oh my God, that problem's too big.

No, no, no, no, no, it's not too big.

You're just trying to bite off too big of a chunk.

Bite off little chunks, right?

And that's how you de-shitify the world.

And you best believe the world still needs some serious de-shittifying.

It's around 20 years since Ailish and Willow launched the Trans Health Initiative, and trans people navigating medical institutions are still met with prejudice and hostility.

The medical care that is available can still be invasive, hard to access, and involve traumatic psychological testing.

Ailish actually says that in the US, it's worse now than she's ever seen it.

Trans people's basic human rights are consistently trampled on, and the mainstream media is just amplifying those hateful voices.

People are dying.

So trans people do it like they've always done.

Figure out a way to do it themselves and help each other do it.

But you can help too.

If you're a trans person in the States looking for resources or a cis person interested in solidarity and mutual aid, we'll leave some links in the show notes.

Girlfriends, we're stronger together.

If you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find loads more incredible women on our feed.

Do check them out.

And please do spread the word and tell your friends about us.

We want as many people as possible to be part of the Girlfriends gang.

Next time on the Girlfriend's Spotlight, Nadia punks the president.

We were told that we are paid by Hillary Clinton to destroy Russia.

They said that we cursed the entire country and thus we need to be burnt at the stake.

Some people say that we need to be whipped publicly on the Red Square.

Hey, you've reached the Girlfriend's Hotline.

You can leave your mini story after the tone.

Hi, Anna and the Girlfriends team.

When our daughter was young, one of my acting students became her nanny and became part of our family.

Really, it was as if our daughter grew up with three parents, not two.

Anyway, time passed and we had moved to a new city.

And at that time, my partner was starting his very first day of his brand new job at the university.

And I got booked for for a film and television gig.

And I had to decide whether to take it or not.

And I was talking to Supernanny on the other side of the country.

And I mentioned this dilemma of whether I should turn down the gig or not.

And she said, oh, I'll come and take Cleo to her first day of grade one.

No worries.

And she got on a plane and she flew all the way from Toronto to the west coast of Canada.

And she took Cleo to her first day of grade one in her new school, in her new city, in full hair and makeup with cupcakes and treats.

And Cleo was as loved and safe on her first day of school as if I and my partner had taken her.

Now that's a girlfriend.

If you have your own story like the one you just heard and you'd like the whole girlfriends gang to hear it, then please send it to us.

You can record it as a voice memo under 90 seconds please and email it straight to thegirlfriends at novel.audio.

Please don't include your name.

We're keeping things a little anon.

We want stories like that one time your bestie kindly told you your outfit was giving serious 2009 energy and lent you a new one.

Or when she offered to babysit when you hadn't slept in days because your baby was up all night doing the terrible twos.

Thank you girlfriend.

I want stories that are meaningful or silly.

I want big, I want small.

I'm desperate to hear them.

So send them over.

Right, I'll catch you later.

Bye.

This season, the Girlfriend Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide.

They do amazing work to help women's rights organisations and movements to strengthen and grow.

If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womankind.org.uk

the girlfriend's spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart podcasts.

For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield.

This episode was written and produced by Amalia Sortland.

Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr.

Our researcher is Zayana Yousaf.

Sensitivity checking and editorial support by Jesse Lou Nawson.

The editor is Hannah Marshall.

Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers.

Production management from Joe Savage, Cherie Houston, and Charlotte Wolf.

Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.

Music supervision by Jake Otajevich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield.

Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein and Gemma Freeman.

The series' artwork was designed by Christina Lemkuhl.

Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development and special thanks to Katrina Norvell, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcast, as well as Carly Frankel and the whole team at WMB.

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I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water.

With electrolytes for taste, it's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yet, here you are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smartwater, for those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

This is an iHeart Podcast.