Interview with Ali Sands | Ep #12

Interview with Ali Sands | Ep #12

Author: Rick Koonce March 26, 2021 Duration: 46:20

Ali Sands is an author and professional speaker who writes and speaks frequently on the topics of love, relationships, intimacy, and gender expression and identity. They're topics she knows a lot about.

Married for 23 years to a straight man, and mother of two children, in 2002 Ali began a relationship with a new partner, who, at the time, inhabited a physically female body, but who soon told Ali that they were, in fact, transgender. Thereafter began an epic 10-year journey, as Ali accompanied her partner, who took the male name "Rhys," as he embarked on the emotionally and physically painful transition to become a transgender man, a story Ali tells in riveting day-by-day detail in her book, I Know Who You Are but What am I?

As Ali tells PFLAG Cape Cod's Rick Koonce, in this moving and wide-ranging interview, the journey Ali took with her partner was one that taught her a great deal, not only about love, intimacy, and gender expression, but also about perseverance, courage, her steadfast commitment to the love of her life, and the simultaneous search for her own identity.

For more information, visit the PFLAG Cape Cod website: https://www.pflagcapecod.org/podcasts.html

© 2021 PFLAG Cape Cod


Hosted by Rick Koonce, Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage: Real Stories of Identity & Acceptance is built around intimate, unscripted conversations that go beyond headlines. This podcast lives in the personal moments-the difficult family dinner, the quiet realization, the supportive friend’s first question. You’ll hear directly from LGBTQ+ individuals, their parents, siblings, and allies, sharing narratives that are less about grand declarations and more about the daily, nuanced journey toward living authentically. The stories encompass coming out, gender transition, and the complex, ongoing search for belonging, offering a raw and moving look at what courage actually sounds like in real time. Produced by Huntington Northstar Productions in partnership with PFLAG Cape Cod, each episode functions as a personal audio journal, focusing on a single portrait where vulnerability and strength are inseparable. Listening feels like being invited into a deeply meaningful, private conversation that highlights our shared humanity. The collective result is a powerful and necessary tapestry of voices that celebrates resilience while honestly examining the challenges within families and communities. Tune in for a series that connects through specificity, where every story adds a vital thread to the broader fabric of human experience.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 56

Profiles in LGBTQ+ Courage: Real Stories of Identity & Acceptance
Podcast Episodes
Interview with Ryan R. | Ep #16 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:02
Ryan R. is a 24-year-old non-binary lesbian. In Ryan's case, that means that though they are lesbian and like to date women, they don't identify with being a girl, a woman, or, with the attributes of traditional feminini…
Interview with Nell Fields | Ep #15 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:13
Nell Fields is a born-again Christian, social justice advocate, and a happily married lesbian who's been with her wife Sarah, a lawyer, for over 20 years. She's also the minister of Waquoit Congregational church in East…
Interview with Deer Sullivan | Ep #14 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:56
Bisexuality... Even among members of the LGBTQ+ community it's a concept and reality that often is not fully understood – or appreciated. As a result, bisexuals sometimes feel marginalized and rejected, even among people…
Interview with Dr. Maureen Osborne | Ep #13 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:59
Dr. Maureen Osborne is a psychologist and gender therapist who has spent over two decades serving the needs of transgender clients. In this fascinating interview with PFLAG Cape Cod's Rick Koonce, Maureen talks, in depth…
Interview with Dirk Correia | Ep #11 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:26
Dirk Correia is a twenty-something transgender male who identifies as nonbinary -- meaning that they don't identify with being either entirely male or female, as society typically understands those terms. As Dirk explain…
Lori Duron | Ep #10 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:54
She calls herself "a fierce Mama bear" when it comes to safeguarding the rights and safety of her two boys. So says Lori Duron, author of Raising My Rainbow, a book that chronicles her family's adventures raising a gende…
Elias Lieberman: Ally | Ep #9 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:16
Rabbi Elias Lieberman has been Rabbi of the Falmouth Jewish Congregation on Cape Cod since 1990. In that time, he's been a steadfast champion of LGBTQ rights, signing on early to support same-sex marriage when it first b…
Joanne Hush: Mother | Ep #8 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:35
You might call Joanne Hush a social pioneer. It's probably not a label she would ascribe to herself. But, Joanne is the mother of a gay son and a lesbian daughter, both of whom came out to her (and her husband Paul) deca…
Alex: Trans Man | Ep #7 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:52
36-year-old Alex Smith knew, from an early age, that he was different. But, as a child, he didn't have the vocabulary to describe his feelings, or the psychological maturity to understand the emotions that stirred in him…
Susan Smith: Parent | Ep #6 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:28
Susan Smith is the mother of a 36-year-old transgender son who she raised with her husband, Roger, on a rural Pennsylvania farm. Back in the 1980s and 90s, sexuality wasn't a topic that even most progressive, open-minded…