Monika: Shelli Renee Joye, an American scientist, academic, painter, philosopher, and author, is my special guest today. Shelli is an amazing woman being able to explore her talents in such different areas as hard sciences, spirituality, consciousness, and painting. She authored many publications on the physics of consciousness. In 2022, she published her biography “My Transition Journal: A Transgender Arc of Self-Discovery”. Hello Shelli!
Shelli: Hello Monika!
Monika: Your life is a constant travel. Born in Port O’Spain, Trinidad, you lived in Panama, Florida, New York, Saudi Arabia, 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: Is this constant travel reflected in 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.
Monika: Has your painting evolved over the years, being a reflection of your spirituality and different interests?
Shelli: Yes, one thing about creativity, 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.
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| "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”. I can understand the first part, given the fact that you built your own HAM radio station by the age of 14, but why being “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 dealing with hard sciences and suddenly you switched to “soft” science such as the physics of consciousness. It seems like a dramatic change…
Shelli: Not really, psychology is a rather soft science, but closer to the heart of what the universe is all about than the mechanics of “hard stuff” like metal and mechanics.
Monika: I am just wondering whether the study of consciousness is really doable. It is so elusive, and so many individuals look at it from a different angle, source of material reality, subjective experiences, God, and so on.
Shelli: I have studied consciousness both 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 and why I am and what should I do with my life and why.
Monika: Let me ask you a more straightforward question. What head or partial brain transplants would 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.
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| "Probably the greatest pain was during the rift between my daughter and myself." |
Monika: I was born as a woman in the male body, so I have adjusted my male body to match my female consciousness, which prompts me to ask the question of why there is no direct linkage between a body and conscience?
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 the Indian Philosophy give 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: Given my own experience as well as that of many girls and women that I interviewed, I wonder whether we should be called ‘runners’ instead of transwomen. We run, run, and run away from our feminine self until it catches up with us. The only difference is how long we can run away. 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 and get drunk and feel terrible the next morning.
Monika: A year ago, you published “My Transition Journal: A Transgender Arc of Self-Discovery”. 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: We all pay the highest price for the fulfillment of our dreams to be ourselves. As a result, we lose our families, friends, jobs, and social positions. Did you pay such a high price as well? What was the hardest thing about your 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: Why did you choose Shelli and Renee for your names?
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." |
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: Was your family surprised by your transition?
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 been Emperor Napoleon’s wife, the Empress Josefina.
Monika: We are said to be prisoners of passing or non-passing syndrome. Although cosmetic surgeries help to overcome it, 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-stressfull for a long time in the beginning.
Monika: Do you remember the first time you saw a transgender woman on TV or met anyone transgender in person that opened your eyes and allowed you to realize who you are?
Shelli: No, I was in Saudi Arabia and the internet was just being connected to Saudi Arabia. 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 electrolysists 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: Did you have any transgender sisters around you that supported you during 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. Frazer had to get permission to do this from the APA, and they called it “telehealth.” So we pioneered gender therapy by email.
Monika: What do you think about 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 kind of outfits do you usually wear? Any special fashion designs, colors, or trends?
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 my clothes or fashions. 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." |
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 try to be a woman that 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, and the fact that I could appear and act like a “soft male” 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 and engineering and English literature. And of course, from age 21 to about 26, exploring all kinds of psychotropic drugs: LSD, mescaline, psilocybin (shrooms), peyote with the American Native 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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