Okay, hello! Today on Ladyface Podcast, we're going to be speaking today with Whitney Zellick and Jen McMullen. And we met you through one of our injectors here, right? Yes, Megan. Yep.

So Megan was telling us kind of about your adventure and how you were doing. And it kind of spoke to me because Whitney and I have talked about what we call is our boob identity. Boob-den-ity! Boob-den-ity, okay. Yeah, just kind of the way we have taken up space over our life with that part of our anatomy.

So that's kind of something that I thought would be interesting to explore with other women with different backgrounds and kind of how it was affecting them. So we just kind of want to talk about today like how breasts are a part of our identity, how they represent confidence or feminism to some people, how kind of like through your life how this changes, maybe like as we were younger and how we feel about it now. I think the other thing that I've noticed is how I am visualizing my daughter go through this as like a teenage woman, right? So for me, there's been a lot of transition over my time as a That's kind of what we want to talk about. So I would say I'm a geriatric millennial because I'm 40 and you're a, are you a baby millennial, Whitney?

Or do you get to be a Gen Xers, Z-9ers? No, 89, so. So you're not a millennial, right? But I am. Okay.

But I don't know. Yeah, you are a millennial, you're an 89er. Okay. And what about you? So I'm 82.

I'll be 44 this year. So you're like a wedgie in between. Yeah. What do you identify as? Nothing.

Just a 44 year old woman. Just a woman. Just kind of midlife. I feel like the whole millennial Gen Z, Gen X came after my time. All of a sudden I was labeled.

Yeah, that's true. When I was younger, teenage, even in my 20s, there never was this label. Even into my 30s, I don't feel like I had a label until I got probably mid 30s and it was like, oh, you're a, and I'm like, am I? Let's ask Whitney the marketer because I think it feels like it's something that they say for cohorts, but it also feels like for people to sell to me. They're like, as a millennial, this is what you like, or this is who you are.

And I was like, I don't, I also am like, I don't know. I mean, I feel like, what is it? I think the Gen Zers really made that term pop of labeling. I remember hearing the word baby boomer as a kid, but it's just recently that we're all, you know, classifying each other. I feel like boomers has been around forever.

Yeah, I do. And then I think my mom is a boomer and her mom or the older people would always be like, there's nothing like our generation. Our work affects the best. We have the hardest life, you know, that type of thing. I feel like previously it was more decades.

It's like, oh, I was born in the 19th. Are they the Gen X? Like, are they Gen X? Yeah, they're Gen X. Okay.

See, I just don't follow. It's not my classification system. Yeah. But I feel like I relate to so many different groups of people. Yes.

That's good. That's really good. Yeah. It depends on your mentality, I guess. I said I didn't really fit into any group.

And then I read all the stuff about people my age and I was like, oh yeah, that's true. I was like, it makes sense. It's a social cohort example. It makes a lot of sense to me. So I guess for you two ladies, I kind of want to know who, when did you like first become aware of your breasts, your boobs, whatever you call them?

Well, I wasn't early bloomer. So I hit puberty between fifth and sixth grade in high school. That's a hard one. And that was pretty brutal. I was taller than ever.

All my friends, I had curves. And not only did I have breasts, but I had an ass. Like I always had a bubble butt. Yeah. Genetically engineered.

You were like, woohoo! My papa. Right? Thanks, Fajah. So I'm a sixth grader with just massive curves and height and a period and I couldn't relate to any of my friends.

And I was very aware. Oh, yes. So fifth or sixth grade is like 12, right? Yep. 11 and 12.

What about you, Whitney? Well, I started growing some boobs before I period at 11. And by the time I was 12, I believe I had D's. And growing up in Utah, Salt Lake City, it was really, really hard to be so developed at such a young age. And very shameful too.

You know, half of my grade's boys loved me because I had big boobs. The other half thought I was a slut because of these big boobs. And I'd always be getting in trouble. They'd change me out of shirts. Do they do that anymore?

Like, I feel like that would be wronged nowadays, but they would change me out of my shirts. They'll do. I don't know. At my daughter's school, I see some of the kids wearing a school shirt. They don't take your shirt like they did before, but sometimes they'll put it in one of their school shirts.

But I see a lot of body parts when I take her to school. I do too. Crop tops are kind of a thing. And I have two teenage boys too. Oh, that's hot.

There's a lot of skin out there. There's a lot of skin. That's okay. There's a butt. My boys have been raised, you know, bodies are just bodies.

Everybody's got a butt. And women have boobs. And there's different shapes and sizes. To avoid the pressure of sex. It is what it is.

Yeah. So I would say for me, I probably grew boobs, but I mostly kind of thought they were annoying for sports. I spent a lot of time ace wrapping them so that when I swung for softball, I could hit better. That's kind of what I feel like. Because I was trying to remember, and I remember I'm tall now still.

How tall are you? What? Like 5.1? 5'2". Yeah.

5.2". And you're like, 5'5". Yeah. Yes. 5'5".

And I'm like 5'10", and like 200 pounds. And I haven't ever been smaller. Not very much. I mean, I was a little skinny before. But yeah, it always, I feel like people always said stuff and I just absolutely did not care.

And I really was always focused on how it affected, like how I could play sports or ride horses or do that kind of stuff. And then I think when people started like making comments, I lived in a matriarchy family. I also grew up in Utah. Where did you grow up? Yeah.

Born and raised. Oh, well Utah. Nobody's imported here. We're just from here. Well, the thing about it is, is like for me, I never had any like shame or guilt or any of that.

And that's kind of part of where this conversation came up because Whitney was telling me how hard it was for her. And I just had a really different experience. I did too. Like, fuck off. That's how I felt.

And then my rest of my day went on. And my grandma and my mom were always like, you stick your boobs out and stick your chest out and just walk and have a great day. Like nobody ever told me to take up less space, any size I was. If I was skinny or had boobs or didn't have boobs, they were like, take up as much space as you want. I think the only thing that was a little different is between my mom, right?

My mom, my grandma would always be like, you should cross your legs, you know, cross your legs, make sure you're sitting appropriately. And I think my mom's age was way less like into being like, here's how you have to sit. She was just like, take up the space. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know about you, Whitney, but did you encounter some shame because of the LDS culture that's here in Lake City? Yeah. And a lot of bullying from girls being jealous too. My mom would try to cover my cleavage or have me put on another shirt. And I really was mad at her for a while for it until my niece decided to have like 14 year old niece or 13 decided to have her boobs hanging out because as women, like we know, like boobs, you know, attract attention.

And I understood why my mom tried to protect me from this, but it took me many years and seeing someone that I loved and knowing how, you know, awful this world can be. And I'm now on my mom's side. And I mean, I even remember stories of we were sitting at Belgian waffle, my favorite waffle house there. And these drunk guys were just making comments about like, Hey, your daughter, how big are your daughter's like boobs? Like, and my mom is the first time I think I heard my mom say the fuck word.

Like, and now I understand how, how hard that must've been for her, but I don't think she came from a place of LDS. I think she came from a place of protection. Yes. Yeah. And so.

My mom was really young. My mom got pregnant with me at 14. She had me at 15. It's just a little bit of a wild child. She was the youngest of nine and the only daughter of the third husband of my grandmother.

So she was the princess. She was the baby. And growing up with my mom, when she kind of found her footing and we moved out from my grandmother's house, I was about eight. She married my stepdad and she would just be in string bikinis all the time. And we had a pretty predominant LDS community in our neighborhood.

And I remember during fast Sunday, do you know what fast Sunday is? The missionaries come around, they collect the tithing for fast Sunday. She would inevitably answer the door, lotioned up, oiled up in her string bikini for these missionaries. So my mom was more body positive. She not even body positive.

She was naughty. She kind of set this example for me that I was this girl that almost, it's not that I was jealous of my mom. I was almost embarrassed by her. It was like, what are you doing? Like these are my friends.

This is my community. And I had the, you know, I had the Mrs. Jackson mom, you know, that everybody knew was and I kind of shied away. I went a little bit more conservative because I hated seeing people look at my mom in such a sexual manner. It kind of disgusted me.

And then throughout my mom's entire life, she always used sex to advance her narrative in any way. And that always has bothered me in my whole life. It's very interesting. And that's for you, like when we were talking before, why it's not separate. Yeah.

It's all kind of tied. Interesting. That's not hard. I mean, it's just life, right? Everybody has different stories.

Everybody has different mothers. And I loved my mother very, very much. And I've now throughout my life started to understand her more and more. And she used the tools that she knew how to use, that she was taught to get ahead in this life. And I think every one of us do that to a certain extent.

And for me, I prefer to cover up a little bit more, but I love to be comfortable and not hot and not bound. Right? I hate wearing bras, but I'll never have, I'll really never have my girls popping out, but they're small enough that I can like keep them in. I could not imagine if I had a large chest. I don't think I would ever.

I love bras. I think they're fantastic. I wear them all the time. I like the ones that push my boobs to the sky. To the sky.

I don't mind that at all. I was like, oh, you wear a bra, that's it. Like you wear shoes. It's just part of your day. But I did, my old assistant, I mean, she made me laugh so hard because we'd have to be like, hey, like this isn't a nipple party.

You got to put your, there's people coming. We're doing a business meeting. Your nipples can't be out. Well, you can nipple covers. I'm a nipple cover fan.

The problem with it is like, it's that whole thing, like with my daughter. My opinion for me has been like, I think that I really enjoy when people are comfortable with their bodies. I really don't mind if women use sex to advance themselves or they don't. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of tools that people are taught and some people, that's their skill, that's the only skill they were taught.

It doesn't really offend me as a woman if she's picking it. And I think it's really hard to define us being trained to do that, us picking to do that, or people teaching us how to be that. Right? And it's hard in this industry because I think it's fun. Making people more confident is fun, but I always have my ethical dilemma on where I live, on the continuum of what's right and what's appropriate to how I treat a woman and how we treat each other.

So for me, I love that you're a person that's like, no bras forever. And for me, I'm like, ooh, I want a lace one. I want a push up one. I want a purple one. I want bedazzled.

For me. I don't know about you, Whitney, but I feel like it's the size. So I obviously have a different the both of you. Right? I feel like if I had bigger breasts and they needed to be, I just think they look prettier when they're in a really nice lacy bra.

Right? Like supported. We needed some support. What about you, Whitney? I know your boobs went viral.

Oh yeah. These titties are famous. We should send a link to that if you want to. Mm-hmm. I do.

She says no. She says no. I don't know any difference, honestly, than having these big jugs. I do know that shopping, I have to be, like I can't wear halter tops or what some of these other women are wearing. So there is some restrictions.

And however, like I fill out nicely when it's needed. Right? So I do appreciate that. As far as jobs, I don't think anyone's hiring me for marketing because of my boobs, but they are welcome to, if that helps. But when I was a server bartender, you bet your ass I took advantage of the boobs.

Like in Vegas, I would wear cleavage. I would. And whether it made me more tips or not, I don't know. But I, you know. Yeah.

I'm going to say yeah. 100%. 100%. You elected to wear cleavage because it had an effect on your tips and the people's response to you, right? It wasn't like a spontaneous feeling.

You were like, today I feel like more cleavage. They weren't attending church either. So let's just see. The nicknames, I mean at the bars they would nickname me, what was it? Kitney or big titty wit.

There's so many over the years, but right now I forgot they were even here until you made me put on a bra for this podcast. So I need a link to your bra people because I definitely don't enjoy wearing a bra, but I could not go outside of my apartment right now without some sort of support. That would be like, yeah, it would be, it would scare the kids and the dogs and everybody if I didn't support them some way, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

I understand that for sure. What about you? Okay. So what were the questions again? I mean like confidence.

Does it change your confidence? What about, cause we heard about your clothing choice. You kind of prefer to be covered, you said. I actually love being small because I don't like to wear a bra. I do like to wear a crop top if I want to wear a crop top.

I like a lower cut shirt because I feel like you get a little bit more of the decollete, you know. I've never thought that my boobs were a confidence builder. I mean, I went through a mastectomy, right? Right. And I heavily contemplated doing an aesthetic flat closure.

Actually that's what I was going to do. And then I don't like to wear bras. So that works out fantastic for me. I won't even have to do a nipple cover. That's fantastic.

And I started just researching some sick tattoos that would go across my chest. So breasts have never been one of those things that have been cumbersome in my life. I've actually, I think my best relationship with my breasts were when I was breastfeeding my children, hands down. So you kind of have a more in a functional category. Absolutely.

And they were beautiful. I mean, they were. They were large. And I had cleavage, natural cleavage for the first time. I'd never really experienced that, right?

And they were just beautiful. They really were so, so beautiful. And I'd never experienced- She's like, behold. Behold. Behold.

Something that I've never had before. But yeah, that was the biggest confidence boost was being able to breastfeed my children. Actually that's pretty interesting. I know that that's a part of life. But I think for me that was like, because my kids, I breastfed.

Well, I didn't even want to breastfeed because it hurt pretty horribly. It hurt so bad. It wasn't like, I wasn't like, wow, I feel the joyhood of mothering. Well, again, convenience for me, I'm a lazy ass, so I don't want to sterilize a bottle. I don't want to have to, and I don't like to waste food.

So for me, it was like wasting for, you know, financially, clinically, you know, cleaning. And it would just be wasteful to me. And then it was just on tap. It was so convenient that you could just latch these bad boys on and drink as much as you want. I mean, that's- It's amazing.

I hear about that because that's Megan's hippie approach for me, I'd say. Oh, I'm a total hippie. And for me, I have all the elements of a hippie, but I'm also a person that is like, I'm going to pump because that's way more convenient for me than other people can help with my kids and other people can bond with my kids too. I did pump. I pumped once a day.

But I would rather poke myself in the eye than have my nipple slowly ripped off by a baby. It was brutal. It hurts too much. I was like, no, thank you. I will give you the benefits a different way.

I didn't want to- sometimes I eliminate the suffering of women for myself. My boobs were just never cool like your guys' boobs. And so that was like the coolest time in their lives. She was like, I was having them out. So they did build her confidence.

She's like, bam. She's like the moth. Just feed my baby right here. She's like, don't do that. I was not going to cover up my baby.

Yeah, that's right. So she's so full of shit if she doesn't- she said they didn't build her confidence. They did. But then they just went away. Do you feel like it affected your- okay, so you kind of just said something pretty just stuck it in there.

You had a dual mastectomy. Yes. So that is a huge difference in how we perceive a feminine body or women, right? So how do you feel like this is affecting you or your relationship? You said, you're like, no big deal.

I'm going to put some tattoos on it. Are you the lady that's going to run without a shirt on? I mean, now we're in the era of you can do pretty much whatever in the hell you want, right? I always was in that era. That's how I was raised.

Yeah. I feel like we are so blessed to be women right now. Like, holy shit. It feels good to be alive right now. And if you've ever picked up a history book as a woman, being alive right now is just, I mean, I have to pinch myself.

Especially in our country, I would have to give you that caveat. We do have- Yes. And then gratitude comes into play. That still is happening around the world. I have like a little weird balance of that gratitude.

I feel like we're required to be grateful for basic human rights. And we have to sit and have this conversation and be like, isn't it amazing that we're going to wear pants, guys? That's so cool. It's so cool when we're not raped now as much. That's fucking great.

I feel like it's slightly fucked up to have to be like, hey, isn't it great to be alive? It is great to be alive, but I still have a teenage daughter that has sexual predators coming after like just when we go to the grocery store. So for me, like I have the, like, I feel like so happy because I see the crap that my mom went through and every lady that burned her bra for me, you know, all the suffragettes, all the laws that have changed. But having people kind of get on political platforms or like the trend towards trad wife stuff, I feel like just picking like that should be the thing, right? Not being like, wow, we have all these options.

Just like being able to pick and not have that pressure of who I say you should be or anyone, right? A man, a woman, other women telling us we're not enough. Like for me here, like I get told all the time, I work so I'm not that great of a mom, right? And if you stay home, you're not like so smart, you're not intellectual enough. And what are you doing?

Like it seems like there's the wedgie of dumb where each butt cheeks lends itself to being crammed in the middle of no win, right? I just think as women, we need to stop paying attention to that bullshit and it'll go away. I think the more we pay attention to it, the more it lingers. So for me, it's like, I'm the ultimate feminist. Yeah, work, baby.

If you want to work, yeah, it'd be a stay at home mom. If you want to be a stay at home mom, stop focusing so much energy on what society thinks or what your friend thinks or what your neighbor next door thinks or your grandma from an entirely different generation thinks. I think we just have to wake up every day. Life is so damn short, I assure you, and do your best and then fucking die. Then die about it.

Okay. This is like that's it. No, I love the sentiment because I still have the feeling of I'll do whatever the fuck but it still is a mold that people grow in. Yeah, and your daughter. And it shapes you without knowledge.

I guess you come out, I mean, for lack of a better metaphor, gummy bear. You come out whatever color you are but the shape of you is that gummy bear, right? So when we say, this is how we can live, do whatever you want, we still have a culture that shapes a lot of the way we get to be. So I can tell you on my Instagram in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to post places I won't take my vagina because I go to travel in cities all the time, right? I travel all over the country and I can do whatever I want.

I'm a hundred pounds more than both of you. No. I am. But you know what I mean? And I don't really have fear but I also know like the space I take up and the other people in my space.

So I think like for me, the whole concept of this is to say to other people, like how do we feel like our environment has shaped this? How do we take a hold of it and decide what we want to do with it? Because there's a time in your life as a woman where there's a lot of external influences and conversations about your body. I think how long people live in that land has to do with kind of what you say. Do you know what I mean?

Like Whitney gets to decide how it takes up her time now too, but I don't feel like a lot of the times when you're younger, it doesn't feel like as much of a choice. When a principal is coming in and being like, this is how we're going to regulate your body, put this shirt on. When your mom comes in and covers your boobs and says, this is why and is this why it's bad? Are your boobs bad? Are you bad?

Do you think that- I don't think they're bad. I actually think, especially to Whitney's mother's reference or even to the principal's reference, I think it's all about perspective. If you think that they're trying to cover your body up because it's shameful, then that's a perspective. For me, I think that Whitney's mom was trying to protect her. I think our bodies are special and I think that they should be treated as such, if you will, instead of just put out there for everybody to enjoy or view or please themselves to.

I think if we start as women treating our bodies special, and not a religious element or a cultural element, but just individually, I think there's a lot of bodies on so many levels and we, instead of the pure magic of what our bodies are. If you choose to wear a crop top out and that makes you feel beautiful and proud of yourself, then that's that. But if you're wearing that crop top to appease somebody else's aesthetics or- I think a lot of- Whatever, then that's, it's not for you. I see that happening with a lot of women. I think a lot of women do it because they do the control and or attention that they feel like they have deeper issues with that too.

I actually have met a lot of women that feel good in their body and they don't actually care. It's not like there's a big deficit and their father never told them they were special. There's people that are in different cultures that feel like skin isn't as big of a deal. Oh no, I wish that I could live in a culture where they're just bare-breasted walking around with a little, you know. But here's the amazing thing, if you look at those cultures, breasts aren't anything.

They're high, they're low, there's not a multi-billion dollar industry of bras to push those bad boys up. They just exist to feed the children of the village. And you don't see any man walking by copping a fill or any cat calling or anything like that. It is a completely different culture, which would be magical. I don't think when you eliminate boobs, you're eliminating the sexualization of women because in other cultures they may show their breasts, but then their ear is the boner.

We have the whole culture with the foot, right? Then the butt, then the vagina. I don't think when you free the boob, you remove any sexualization of the rest of someone's body. I think that that's how we reproduce. Scientifically we're set up with pheromones and androgens that push that.

Are going to find something to rub up against. Yeah, I think for me, I think that I've loved how it's affected my career because people have treated me like I was an idiot because of my boobs. And it is the greatest camouflage of my life. I would paint it camouflage and put it on my head and go hunt in a jungle. That's how fucking effective it's been for me.

I get underestimated on a daily basis because of my boobs. So I enjoy them. When I was younger, I was like, excuse me, really? You know, I was more surprised at people's reaction than my reaction to my boobs. I would say weekly I get groped by women that I perceive are straight because they're like, are those real or they poke them or touch them?

I feel like I get groped more by women than men, especially in public bathrooms, public bathrooms, restaurants, any venue I have been and people put their faces in them and on them. So I feel like there's also that whole communal body of a woman. They're like, yes, it is all of our bodies. So that's why I'm like, if you free the boobs, someone's going to come grope your ear or like the bottom of your butt. And that's that culture is fetish.

Well, it's like being pregnant has anybody walked up to you and rubbed your belly when it's just out there. It's never been. It doesn't really bother me. It didn't me but I saw it bothers some friends. There were some strangers that it would almost take me back, right?

Like, okay, like, okay, that's it. You're rubbing my my Buddha belly right now. Yeah, I just don't mind touch but I'm Italian. I don't really care. But I also have I don't know.

So I think it's been hilarious about my career. It's been hilarious for me. It doesn't really bother me because if they are impacted by breasts that much, you can really triangulate how to overcome that person very easily. I guess it's like, yeah, it's probably not good to say I was like, you know, the people that still wear a mask sometimes and you're like, oh, okay, I'm going to be very respectful of you. And here's some pure sin right?

Or here's some pure cell to clean your hands just so that you you just know where people stand. It's very easy. You say something that's very interesting. I never refer to my breasts as tits. My whole life.

My grandma would have she would have been like, no, no, animals have tits. Women have breasts or boobs. You do not let anyone call your boobs tits and you do not date that man. He is a pig and never talk to him. The generational jargon.

So like my whole life, I've been like, excuse me, most people don't say that to me. But I was called Chester the lester. Chestercles. I've heard that one a lot of times. That one's a weird and dumb one, but also witty.

I can like appreciate a witty one. But I thought that was interesting because that's something I hear you say very often. And I'm always like programmed. That's my little gummy bear mold to be like, excuse me, you don't talk to me that way. You know?

So that's something that I was really, really interested in is body image versus body ownership. What do you feel? I think this is a good question because you said you're the ultimate feminist. And I think that there's a feminist, which is kind of an action. And then there's feminine and feminism.

And we kind of split them all up. And right now we're like, you're not in your feminine energy. If you say no, or you make direct answers, or if you have to make too many decisions, you're not being in your feminine energy. Like the way we define feminine, femininity, feminist right now is pretty interesting. So I wanted to ask you, what do you feel like body identity versus body ownership is for you?

I mean, body identity, I'm a female and I'm, and I love that I'm able to do all of the things. I mean, for me, creating a child within my body was huge. Yeah. As far as identifying as a female, I guess, being able to breastfeed my children was huge. But I fucking hated being a girl when I was in my youth.

I mean, going through puberty, you know, having your tits hurt so badly as you walked down stairs. Have you guys ever done that? It's like, you know, you're about to start your period when you have to hold these bad boys because they hurt so bad. The cramps that would have me passing out at 12 years old because they were so painful, right? The sweating and then everything that came with that.

I don't know if you guys get cold sores, but every time I'd have my period, I would get a cold sore. Really? And it was always right before picture day in school. It's like son of a bitch. Let me tell you, if I was 20 years younger, I probably would change- Your gender?

My gender. Really? For sure. Like I actually had a conversation with a friend of mine. She was born a biological female, and at 14, she decided that she identified as a male.

I kind of was going through the hormone suppressing stages, and I got very candid with him, formerly her, Zoe, and then now Cecil, right? I just said, I just want to ask you an honest question. When I hit puberty, it was probably the worst time of my life. It was horrendous. I was bleeding out.

My body was changing, and I had a decently supportive mother to hold me on the toilet while I told her how much I absolutely hated being a female. I didn't want to do this, right? I could not imagine. Her story is, or his story is his to tell, but a dysfunctional relationship with his mother and his stepmother and his dad, and to not have that support as a female when you're going through that life change for at least three or four years. I told him straight up, I would have hands down changed my gender.

And it was interesting because he looked at me, and it was like I had struck this chord of how fucking hard it is to be a woman, biologically, right? So hard that if you don't have that support of other females around you, that you will literally inject yourself with hormones and change that shit up. And I feel like from my perspective, my puberty for me was pretty close to like, well, this is a little annoying. How can I make my boobs fit into this? Like, who am I not going to get in trouble by?

Because I would be like, you know, I would be like pulling it all the way. I'm like, hello, everyone. I've arrived. But I, and then I would wrap them up for sports. Like I've, you know, like I never had a hellacious time with periods or cramps.

I just really loved my body. I loved being a woman. I think it was really hard to have kids because nobody was like, all right, once upon a time, you're going to have a baby and every fucking thing's going to change and I'm not going to tell you, but you're welcome. And you picked it. And you're like, okay.

And then like how your, your body identity changed a ton because you maybe were smaller or you had no stretch marks or you were used to like your time being yours. Like that was really difficult for me that people weren't a little bit more like, hey, your whole life changes. Because everyone kind of says it, but there's not that like real feeling of the change. And I think like, like out of all my time being a woman, like my specialty is to talk to people about paramenopause and menopause. And I think that I've sought this type of job because I wanted to make women feel more comfortable.

And I wanted to tell them there were solutions for their body outside of what general population medicine could offer. Because I've met people that have struggled and I can't imagine like, I watch them and I'm like, look at you go. I feel so proud like of Whitney and other people when they're like telling me their stories. And I'm like, that was hellacious. I just had a great time and I enjoyed myself and I wasn't, I would never be I'm going to switch my gender because I had a cramp.

I never would feel that way. Or like, I don't like, you know, and my mom was very supportive, but it was like, when I asked, she wasn't like, here's the pathway, you know, there's speed bumps here. And for me, now that's what I do with my daughter. I'm like, here's all the speed bumps. This is what they smell like.

This is the color. You decide how fast you drive because this one hurts. This one is bumpy and it fucking hurts. And that's what I really like to do with women and perimenopause and menopause. I'm like, this is going to be a little bit bumpy, but we can probably get you to a place where you feel more like yourself.

So I don't know. I think for me, I, I've met a lot of trans women that I feel like it's a different type of hard. Yeah. Like I can't imagine how that feels. And I think when I was younger, I was like, this is our land.

And I was like, you can come to our land and we'll tell you how hard it is and come and visit it. Come back now. We're like, here's the fun parts and we can, and I was like, Ooh, could you tell me why you buy your shoes? Cause I'm giants and you're a bigger too. But I just have been like, you know, like excited to see them comfortable in their bodies and like what that does to a person, you know, to feel comfortable.

I definitely think that our culture is missing an initiation into womanhood and, and boyhood or manhood. And I feel like that was a Freudian slip you animal. Yeah, that's true. I haven't always been the most secure about my body because I don't know very many women who are honestly, it is, it's, it's marketing. I do it, you know, it's, it's everywhere about products and like getting the male gaze and like our worth was so ingrained into us that when we grow up, we get married and have babies.

We have to do the hat by looking a certain way. You know, it is just so deeply ingrained. And for so long, I thought that if I were a size two, all my problems would disappear. I remember like that was my main problem. Like if only this, everything would be better.

I became a size two and I'm going to tell you it's just different problems, right? So that's a humbling moment. I'm still learning on how to feel safe in my body and how to enjoy my body and body. So I'm not the best person to ask about owning ownership in my body. I am still learning at 36, but I can tell you I have not for the longest time looked in the mirror and said, if only I were this, then life would be better.

I've, I've achieved some wisdom since then, but. I think that's the first step. I think that is the first step of letting go of trying to fit into a box that society has painted for you. That's the perfect, you know, female form, letting go of that, and then starting to just appreciate that your body moves, that your dog shows up for you every single day, that your body, you know, absorbs sunlight and kisses your dog can speak to your friends and can laugh and these hands that, you know, take care of people. And I think when you can start shedding the weight or the size or the color or, you know, the smoothness, then all those other amazing things start to smoothness.

I don't know if I'll give that one up. Some people want it, but I actually really like the sensations of being alive. Right. So for me, I don't know, I do a job that people view as superficial and being in this side of it, where we talk to people about how their confidence is affected by the questions that people even ask them. Someone says, are you tired?

Are you angry? When they say that to somebody enough in a day, Botox does impact them. If they don't look tired because you give them progesterone and they can sleep and their neurotransmitters change, that is impactful. So I think like when you say you're learning your body, I think we probably learn our body in every five to 10 year increments as we go through different phases of our life. And our brain changes, like what we value, our value systems, who we listen to.

But there's another caveat. Estrogen is the hormone of accommodation. So as that diminishes in our body, our give-a-dump from external input really changes. And then I think what you said is incredibly valuable, Whitney, when you achieve this goal that you found to be something that would give you happiness, I think that that happens to people with non-body goals, with financial goals, with education goals, with kid goals. You start to realize always having that thing you're chasing isn't the point.

It's how fun you, how much fun you have chasing it, right? How much fun Walter is for you. You know, how much fun your two boys are, how much fun it is to find the tattoo for your chest, right? So I think, I don't know, I think the most special thing is deciding to be a community of women that doesn't break itself down from the inside out. I think that's what I want to die doing.

When I get old and smelly, I want to have, or young and stinky. I could be stinky at any point, who cares? But you know what I mean? Like I want to have a group of women that are on my team. Like I feel like that's invaluable.

You know, this is your friend that's like, hello, everything is an herbal supplement. You can save your life. Just rub some zinc on your nose and you'll get them all better. And then you have your friend that is like, be smooth every day. And then your other friend that's like, shut up guys.

Let's go in the water and let's swim. Let's go on the beach. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'm really happy that I get to be a woman.

And I'm really happy for all the types of women it takes to make the tribe I've created. Is there any other questions you guys want to cover to finish it up? I'm curious about your mastectomy. And I've just been like, I hear you talking in such gratitude about life and your body. And I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Or were you born always this sweet? Or did you find a new perspective? I will say that has been a surprise with all of this is. And I might get emotional. I thought I was ready for, you know, stuff like this.

But it's all the things. It's, you know, I mean, it's so much. We could probably do another podcast talking about this. But we wanted to, but Megan just said, we'll see if it would come up organically. Yeah.

There's so much to talk about. But yes, the gratitude that I have for my body and the way that it has shown up for me with this transcends, I mean, every external force that our society labels us or puts on us. It's within all of us. And when you have to make that choice of life and death, and you have to carve out everything society has labeled you as a female, you have to carve out your chest. And I have to carve out, you know, my uterus and my ovaries.

And slowly but surely all of these things were removed from me. And I have never felt more feminine energy in my life than having these things, these body parts, these bits and pieces that define us as women taken from me. And giving that example to my daughter, that was a driving force for me. I watched my mom die a month before my daughter was born at 50 years old from breast cancer. And when you are, when you have a front row seat to that, that's, you would think that that would be enough to make the decision.

When you get the genetic diagnosis that you do in fact have the Boracca gene, which is the heavy hitter, right? But it wasn't, it was, it was interesting to me and my grandmother had a breast removed and she raised me until I was eight. She had a breast removed and I remember waking up with her in the morning and seeing her put on her bra and stuffing the pad in the other side and learning about her story and my grandfather's story as I got older, their divorce because of her breast cancer. You would think that would make me make the decision. But what made me make the decision was I ended up just the more conservative route after receiving my genetic diagnosis and doing testing.

So your mammogram and then your MRI with contrast every six months, right? Starting at 35, I was actually 36 when I got the genetic diagnosis. So I'd had my daughter at 35. So I was technically geriatric, but I just thought for her, I needed to get this test. And I thought there's no way in hell I would be positive for this because I always identified more genetically with my dad's side of the family.

I have his shape. I have his nose. I have his vibe, right? I never was itty. My mom was itty bitty, teeny teeny tiny, right?

So was my grandmother and I just wasn't that way. Needless to say, I ended up getting a mammogram call, a callback saying that I have a cyst on my left breast. And the emotional and mental spiral that you think, holy shit, I fucking, I waited too long. Like, who did I think I was to not think that this wouldn't come after me, right? So after two months of your hurry up and wait, doctor visits and biopsies and all of that stuff, it came back benign.

And that relief that I wasn't going to have to put my family through chemo, radiation, whatever, right? Was huge. And then I decided to gamble again and just wait and do my MRI with contrast. Cause I was not ready to do a bilateral mastectomy and a full hysterectomy. I don't know why I wasn't, but I just wasn't.

I was scared, right? I watched my grandmother go through surgeries and a divorce because of it. My mother died because of it. I've already had a scare one time and I still didn't have the courage to take that next step. And then I did the MRI with contrast and they called me and let me know that my right breast had lit up and I needed to come back in for a biopsy.

And it was just like, I am the roller coaster of it. I am done. And so I pulled out my little sticky note and I called the genetic specialist that had been in my wallet for seven years and made an appointment with her. And I couldn't even talk to her for two or three months, but I got the ball rolling. And so I was able to have that peace of mind and talking to her, she's a specialist and she gave me all the numbers of my particular genetic predisposition.

And then I had witnessed it firsthand and it was like, I need to do this. And everything fell into place. The doctors, the nurses, the referrals, the friends, I mean, there were so many women that came into my world with questions about them. There were so many women that came to me saying that they had a genetic diagnosis and then they ended up getting cancer. Some daughters that had their mothers had died and they were warned.

And it was just this constant outpouring and support of women and maybe some divine intervention to a certain extent that it was like, take care of yourself. And then I had to make the decision, I didn't know this was possible, of reconstruction for my body because I hadn't had cancer. They could do a nipple and a skin sparing mastectomy for me. And I didn't even know that existed. And then I'm talking to this doctor and I was dead set on not having reconstruction done.

My mom again was young, 14, 15. I remember being a little girl, seeing my mom in the bathtub, itty bitty tiny breasts. And I knew that like that wasn't voluptuous or beautiful. And it was probably two years later, she had breast implants done. And that's when she was wearing the bikinis for all of the missionaries all the time.

I mean, she loved her body, right? But those implants blocked my mom's breast cancer diagnosis. And so for me, it was like, I cannot put implants in my body. So just take them out. And then when she told me we can do a body tissue transfer, it was like, yay, everything's so great.

But then I just had, I went through everything. It's been 18 months. And this last surgery, the reconstruction was brutal. Yeah, it was so brutal that I still need time to process and decide if I would do it again. For now, I mean, I'm tore up from the floor up, I'm not going to be a bikini model anytime soon.

But I'm grateful, I think to have my shape. But I don't think that I would be sad if I didn't. Because again, to your point, I have never felt more feminine than having all of my feminine bits removed from my body. Nicole Sade Yeah, the female part, but the feminine part is like your soul, right? Nicole Sade Because that's the whole point.

What people say is what their soul feels like. Nicole Sade Yes. Nicole Sade Right? So that's- Nicole Sade So, you know, minds can be changed, ideas can be changed about what that is. But yeah, I've never connected with my feminine energy more, having those things removed.

Now, that's pretty special, right? Nicole Sade It is. It's really special. But I mean, I could go on and on. I have so many incredible instances, insights, perspectives that have come from this journey.

And you know, women need to know that we are more than our bodies, so much more, so much more. And for our daughters, I thought laying in bed with my daughter one night that she would maybe one day be diagnosed with this and be too afraid to take the leap if she were to see my body without breasts. Nicole Sade Oh, I see. Nicole Sade And there was this moment of like, okay, I need to look into body tissue transfer for her. So when she sees my body, she still sees this feminine body.

Nicole Sade Kind of like what you saw when you were a little girl of your mom, right? Nicole Sade Absolutely. So when she sees me, she won't be afraid if she has to make that decision because she I don't want her to see this monster, right? Nicole Sade Yeah. Nicole Sade So I went forward and did the body tissue transfer.

And don't get me wrong, we're still in the healing stages. I'm still looking at my body in the mirror physically and trying to acquaint myself with the new look. But my daughter has fully seen my body. I've had zero shame in showing her. Nicole Sade How old is your daughter?

Nicole Sade She's eight. Nicole Sade That's good. Nicole Sade We're very body positive in our house. Nicole Sade The naked bomb house. Nicole Sade Absolutely.

Absolutely. All the things, the stretch marks, and the shapes and the sizes and the scars and our bodies are just these beautiful vessels that get us through this incredible thing called life. And it's the journey, right? We have these beautiful vessels that we get to touch and feel. Nicole Sade The sensations of life.

I like the sensations of life. Nicole Sade Yes. And I think if we can be in tune with that instead of the weight, the size, the shape, it's empowering. Nicole Sade Yeah. So I actually love that.

That makes me really happy to hear how, well, and also for you to be a resource for other people. Nicole Sade Yeah. Nicole Sade Because I think the whole time your message has been pretty positive and honest about how parts of your puberty, how that was horrible. But the version of you that had two babies, three babies, two boys and a girl, it sounds like. And now the version of you that wants to go through life being a good example to your daughter.

Nicole Sade Yeah. Nicole Sade I don't think there's anything better than that through identity, right? She's like- Nicole Sade And not even just my daughter, but your daughter. And this daughter, and we have this whole generation of young girls growing up that are watching us whether we like it or not. Nicole Sade That's true.

Nicole Sade You're in the marketing industry, right? What you put on display for them, I think having women like us in the field to make sure that we're extremely thoughtful about what we put out there and the narrative and the why's, right? I love that you hit on with me having a full hysterectomy. I've done a deep dive into progesterone, estradiol, testosterone, and understanding how that can help your body. It's not just about aesthetics and looking pretty or looking beautiful.

It's about feeling good. Nicole Sade I think the other thing too is we think about the way we look. By the time somebody comes to me that estrogen has changed their skin, and we got to think about the skin that's for your heart and for your brain. So sometimes that's how we got into the conversation with aesthetic medicine. It's new to everybody else, but I've been doing hormones for 10 years for patients because the ethical approach wasn't always to give someone Botox or filler.

The ethical approach is if you give somebody a little bit of progesterone, it can level their mood off to the point where they may not feel like they want the Botox, right? So things like that, the ethics behind aesthetic medicine is the whole point for me is you can take up space, you can enter this world and be as deep or shallow in it as you want. You can dip a toe in and use CeraVe on your feet, that as far as you ever have to go into aesthetics. Nicole Sade But as far as the hormone component, it does change the way you feel. So I think that that will be really good as you go through this process to see what the recommendations are from your oncologist and then the risk factors and actually the benefits of how it affects your long-term well-being, your cognitive function, your insulin resistance, all of that.

Nicole Sade Yep, all the things. Nicole Sade I am so happy I met you. Nicole Sade Yeah, I'm so happy I met you both. Nicole Sade Yeah. Nicole Sade So I guess we have just a little bit of different perspectives on our bodies after spending some time together.

So I love you, the Whitney, and I'm so glad that you could join this. And I already love you. I'm so glad to be around for a really long time. Nicole Sade Yeah, good job. Nicole Sade Yeah, God willing anyway.

Nicole Sade Yep, only that's the only one. Nicole Sade Yep. Nicole Sade Well, thank you so much for joining us. Nicole Sade You're welcome.