Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Shelli Renee Joye has lived across Panama, Florida, New York, Saudi Arabia, London, and the United States before eventually settling in Italy. Along the way, she built a HAM radio station at fourteen, became an electrical engineer and software developer, earned a Master of Arts in Indian Philosophy, pursued a Ph.D., explored the nature of consciousness, and developed a body of paintings inspired not so much by physical journeys as by what she calls “psychonautic traveling.” Her search for understanding has always been deeply personal. From an early age, Shelli was fascinated by the questions of who we are and why we are here. Science, religion, mysticism, meditation, psychedelics, Tantra, and philosophy all became different paths toward the same mystery. Even her transition emerged from this lifelong search for identity and consciousness. She began transitioning while working in Saudi Arabia, a period she remembers as both difficult and transformative, and later found professional and emotional support through pioneering email-based therapy with Dr. Lin Fraser.
There was, however, a considerable price to becoming Shelli. Her transition affected her relationship with her children, and the painful estrangement from her daughter became one of the deepest wounds of her life. At the same time, transition opened the way to a new sense of wholeness, a new professional identity, and a remarkable love story. She met Susanne, another transgender woman, through an early online support group, and the two eventually became partners for life. Today, Shelli describes herself as an introvert, yogini, hermit, scientist, philosopher, painter, and writer. Her paintings are an expression of the inner journeys that have occupied her for decades, while her 2022 book, My Transition Journal: A Transgender Arc of Self-Discovery, gathers together a life spent searching for the answer to one deceptively simple question: “Who am I?” It is a question that connects every part of Shelli’s story, from the engineer studying consciousness to the woman who finally stopped running from herself. And that is where our conversation begins.
Monika: Shelli, welcome! It is a pleasure to have you with us today.
Shelli: Hello Monika!
Monika: Your life has been one long journey, from Panama and Florida to New York, Saudi Arabia, and London, and now Italy. Is Italy your final destination, the place where you want to settle down for good?
Shelli: Yes, I have fled California with its dreadful forest fires that threatened our cedar cabin every summer, and the redneck Trumpist fundamentalists that in their ignorance are destroying what was once a workable democracy in America.
Monika: Does this constant travel find its way into your paintings?
Shelli: Well, not the physical traveling, but the psychonautic traveling. From age 21 to 27 or so, I explored the hidden dimensions of consciousness through various psychedelic (psychotropic) substances. And since then, of course, deep meditation/contemplation practices. It was the constant travel within the psychic dimensions that my paintings reflect.
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| "I consider myself just a human paintbrush of the cosmos." |
Monika: Your art seems to mirror your spirituality and your many interests. Has your painting evolved over the years?
Shelli: Yes, one thing about creativity is that it is always evolving if you “get out of the way” and let nature take its course by working through you. I consider myself just a human paintbrush of the cosmos.
Monika: On your website, you describe yourself as “fascinated by science and somewhat of a nerd.” The first part is easy to understand, given that you built your own HAM radio station by the age of 14, but why a nerd?
Shelli: Well, I was not much into social activities. The little girls didn’t let me join their activities and I hated the little boys’ games of baseball and such, so I was a loner and learned to love reading books on science, technology, history, English literature, poetry, etc. I would call that a nerd, I suppose. I felt awkward around other kids my age, especially when girls would become attracted to me (I was a really cute guy, though I would have preferred being a pretty girl!).
Monika: You started your professional career in the hard sciences and then moved to a “soft” science such as the physics of consciousness. That seems like a dramatic change.
Shelli: Not really. Psychology is a rather soft science, but it is closer to the heart of what the universe is all about than the mechanics of “hard stuff” like metal and machinery.
Monika: Is the study of consciousness really doable? It seems so elusive, and everyone approaches it from a different angle: the source of material reality, subjective experience, God, and so on.
Shelli: I have studied consciousness from the viewpoints of science, religion, mysticism, and direct experience through drugs and meditation. Why? Because I felt from an early age (when I first took LSD) that “consciousness” is the thing that would unlock my understanding of the mystery of gender and identity, of who I am, why I am, what I should do with my life, and why.
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| "Probably the greatest pain was during the rift between my daughter and myself." |
Monika: Here is a more straightforward question. What would a head transplant or a partial brain transplant do to my consciousness? Would I have a “neighbor” in my head?
Shelli: Well, we do have many “neighbors” in our heads. We live under the illusion that we are “one” person, but in reality we are a Borg hive of various identities! And yet all of those identities are just different perspectives of the one Self that Jung talks about. We are one, yet we are diffracted into seemingly separate selves.
Monika: I was born a woman in a male body, so I adjusted my body to match my female consciousness. That makes me wonder why there is no direct link between body and consciousness.
Shelli: I think there is a direct link, genetically and programmatically, only in TG people. Evolution is trying something new, trying to release and integrate both of the dualities into a more integrated persona. Only this goes against the traditional alignment of the human psyche that has worked fairly well for several millennia.
Monika: Does Indian philosophy offer any answers in this respect?
Shelli: I have a Master of Arts degree in Indian Philosophy because I discovered that one of the major principles of Tantra is the integration of the male/female principle, Shiva/Shakti. I wanted then to learn as much as possible about Tantra and the methods and techniques of integrating male and female in one’s own consciousness.
Monika: Based on my own experience and that of many girls and women I have interviewed, I wonder whether we should be called “runners” instead of transwomen. We run, run, and run away from our feminine selves until they catch up with us. The only difference is how long we manage to run. Was it the same in your case?
Shelli: Yes, I ran away from it and tried to suppress it, but it kept popping up to plague me, whenever I found myself alone on a business trip, for example. I’d “dress” in the hotel room, get drunk, and feel terrible the next morning.
Monika: Your book, “My Transition Journal: A Transgender Arc of Self-Discovery,” came out a year ago. What inspired you to write it?
Shelli: It’s still a work in progress. I wanted to share my long, complicated life story, or at least leave it behind me as a legacy.
Monika: Fulfilling our dream of being ourselves costs us dearly, often our families, friends, jobs, and social positions. Did you pay such a high price too? What was the hardest part of coming out?
Shelli: Definitely it was the impact on my family, my ex and my son and daughter, the pain and confusion my transition brought into their lives... even now it hurts, though my son and daughter have grown close since then. Probably the greatest pain was during the rift between my daughter and myself. She was 18 at the time. She wouldn’t speak to me and didn’t want to see me for almost a year. Previously, as her Dad, we had been so very close.
Monika: What is the story behind your names, Shelli and Renee?
Shelli: I had begun transitioning in Saudi Arabia, a rather dangerous period. I was seeing a company psychiatrist and family therapists there (it was the huge oil company, Aramco). I was also meditating in a pitch-black walk-in closet, at the time practicing something taught by Ramana Maharshi, asking myself “Who am I?” as part of meditation.
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| "Susanne and I are still deeply in love, though the flavor has changed and matured." |
At work, I had been developing software “shells,” which are layers of code just above machine language that connect the machine language with higher level software languages. One night I suddenly heard the distinct word “Shelli,” and just like that I knew that was my name.
Also, I had always been fascinated by the Romantic poets, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. But I felt I had to spell my new name in a more humble, feminine way, so I ended it with the “i.”
As for Renee, it was the name of the younger sister of a woman I had married as a teenager, trying to “solve” my inner conundrum of feeling like a woman in a man’s body. I was 20 at the time and Pamela was 18. Renee was 16 or 17. I was able to talk with Renee and we became close friends. Renee married when she was 18 and on her honeymoon, flying in a tourist plane in California, she died when the plane crashed. So I chose Renee, which also means “reborn” or “renewed.”
Monika: Did your transition take your family by surprise?
Shelli: Yes, absolutely. I had appeared to be the “perfect Dad,” a successful young software engineer, a loving father, generous and caring, a lover of reading and spending time reading to my children, taking the family to special places. We once spent three days and nights in the Grand Hotel Villa Cora in Florence, staying in the room that had belonged to Emperor Napoleon’s wife, the Empress Josefina.
Monika: Passing, or not passing, can feel like a prison sentence. Cosmetic surgeries help, but we will always be judged accordingly. How can we cope with this?
Shelli: We just have to get used to it and let it go. The worst part is during and shortly after “transition,” when you feel you are being judged by everybody passing by. Even worse is being “Sir’d” over the telephone because our voices, for those of us transitioning late in life, are a bit low in octave and timbre. So we learn, when initiating a telephone call, to immediately inform the person on the other end that we are female, by saying “Hello, my name is Shelli Joye and . . .” As one grows older, one worries less and less about passing or non-passing. But it is indeed super-stressful for a long time in the beginning.
Monika: Do you remember the first time you saw a transgender woman on TV or met one in person, someone who opened your eyes and helped you realize who you are?
Shelli: No. I was in Saudi Arabia and the internet was just being connected there. This was about 1998. I searched for “transsexual” and, to my surprise, found a reference to a gender therapist, Dr. Lin Fraser, and read a transcription of a presentation she gave to the American Psychological Association.
From that moment on I realized that my condition was not such a terribly rare thing and I began to consider the possibility of doing something about it. So I managed to contact Dr. Fraser, who lived and practiced in San Francisco, and I made arrangements to visit her for several sessions.
During that same trip, I flew to Dallas for massive electrolysis at a clinic run by a dentist who had transitioned, Jo Bren. She would numb her clients up with lots of pain injections in the face and then two electrologists would work on removing facial hair while I could watch videos. There was one woman on each side of me and it was wonderful to hear them chit-chatting and gossiping about other clients who had or were transitioning.
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| "I discovered that one of the major principles of Tantra is the integration of the male/female principle." |
I also met other transgender sisters for the very first time in my life and found them to be highly intelligent and otherwise “normal.” One had flown in from DC and was actually an FBI agent! Another flew a Black Hawk helicopter as a trainer in Colorado. This gave me a great deal of confidence. Of course, it was extremely costly, about $3000 for two days of electrolysis, 8 hours a day. But I worked in Saudi Arabia and luckily had the money.
Monika: Were there any transgender sisters around you who supported you through the transition?
Shelli: No, but while living in Saudi Arabia, my therapist and I “journaled” every day by email. She would time her reading and responses and charge me accordingly. It worked quite well, as I was going through many, many things: feelings, anxieties, doubts, fears, etc. This went on for one year. In fact, Dr. Fraser had to get permission to do this from the APA, and they called it “telehealth.” So we pioneered gender therapy by email.
Monika: How would you describe the present situation of transgender women in your country?
Shelli: Well, my current country is Italy, but I assume you mean the USA, where there is basically a war going on between conservative assholes and liberal idiots, almost reaching the point of bursting into flame. The far right is coming down hard on transgender people, just when we thought we had reached a new level of public acceptance.
Monika: Do you like fashion? What do you usually wear, and are there any designers, colors, or trends you favor?
Shelli: No, I am more of a yogini, i.e., I have practiced yoga and meditation since I was about 22, and I am not very interested in clothes or fashion. I am more interested in internal self-development through meditation and psychonautic exploration, though these days my drug of choice is a bit of cannabis before (and sometimes during) my meditation periods each day.
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| "We share the same sense of humor and high level of intelligence and many interests." |
I am an introvert and always have been (partly because of being TG perhaps, but I am not sure; likely I could never relate to many others because I was “too smart” and interested in things most others were not, like reading history or science or psychology, trying to understand “who am I? Why am I here? Am I sick or am I special?”). I recall having to read George Eliot’s Silas Marner when I was about 14, and everyone in the class hated it, but I loved it. So I’ve always been a bit of a recluse.
In fact, I’m an official “hermit” as I took lay vows as an oblate with a Benedictine monastery about 30 years ago. I actually considered becoming a monk back then, but felt I wasn’t “good enough.” But it did attract me, the idea of living alone and praying a lot (to atone for the “sin” of feeling like a woman, perhaps?).
Monika: I remember copying my sister and mother first, and later other women, trying to look 100% feminine, and my cis female friends used to joke that I was trying to be a woman who does not exist in reality. Did you experience the same?
Shelli: No, but I was really happy when the hippie trend emerged and I could grow my hair long. I could appear and act like a “soft male,” a somewhat effeminate hippie. Still, I played the game of appearing to be a happily well-adjusted, successful male. But inside I was not really happy, so I suppressed a lot of feelings by studying hard, focusing on physics, engineering, and English literature. And of course, from age 21 to about 26, I explored all kinds of psychotropic drugs: LSD, mescaline, psilocybin (shrooms), peyote with the Native American Church, DMT, but mainly cannabis, with which I’ve had a lovely, benign, motivating relationship since age 21 (I am about to turn 77 now in Italy).
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Shelli Renee Joye.
© 2023 - Monika Kowalska
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