The Trans Narrative Podcast · Trans Narrative Pod

Rosie Sandri : Recovery, Inclusive Education, & Queer Digital Storytelling

·1 hr 17 min·5 clips

Her mother died of liver cirrhosis a month before graduation, and Rosalyn went back to school the next day.

1. The Trans Narrative Podcast episode focuses on Rosie Sandri’s childhood, school years, grief, drinking, and path into teaching. 2. Caroline hosts with Athena and AJ Evergreen, and Rosie Sandri is the guest as a transgender educator, content creator, and advocate. 3. The episode asks how Rosie moved from private-school bullying and family loss toward queer self-understanding and classroom work. 4. Rosie says her first decade in Philadelphia and Utica felt relatively easy, with a stay-at-home mother and a father who traveled for work. 5. After her family moved to Texas, she describes private Catholic school as “a living hell” where she was bullied for being effeminate and flirtatious with boys. 6. She says joining speech and debate, theater, and school productions gave her the first real friendships and a place to try on different gendered presentation. 7. Rosie remembers learning makeup in theater because her director required every student to do their own eyeliner and foundation. 8. She says her mother died of liver cirrhosis a month before Rosie graduated high school, after a period when doctors said a liver transplant was needed. 9. Rosie describes returning to school the day after her mother died and then taking on cooking, homework help, and childcare for her younger brother and sister. 10. She says she turned to alcohol instead of therapy and later entered college with years of grief she had not processed. 11. Rosie gives a detailed account of working late shifts at Domino’s, going to class at 8 a.m., and drinking Steel Reserve and Four Loko while relying on Red Bulls and coffee. 12. She says that routine led to rhabdomyolosis, a hospital stay, and kidneys that “almost shut down” because she was not drinking water. 13. Rosie says she had a 1.5 GPA, was on academic probation, and repeated the same statistics class for eight semesters before finally passing. 14. She explains that her turning point came in an upper-level English seminar on detective fiction, which made college feel like something she could finally take seriously. 15. Rosie says dating her ex-wife reduced the time she spent drinking and also put her around trans friends she found compelling and welcoming. 16. She describes watching queer documentary stories like How to Survive a Plague and feeling drawn to the solidarity and intensity of queer activism. 17. The tone is confessional and conversational, with Caroline and Athena interrupting with personal reactions and follow-up questions. 18. The pacing mixes long autobiographical stretches with humor about sports, Catholicism, and theater, including repeated jokes from AJ Evergreen. 19. People interested in trans education, queer identity, and recovery stories would likely want this. 20. People wanting a brief, light, or plot-driven episode might skip this.

As heard by us

A plainspoken conversation about trans visibility, teaching, grief, and the price of being publicly known.

Rosalyn Sandry's story moves between queer visibility, classroom life, and the cost of being known in public. She talks about teaching, transition, the attention that came with TikTok, and the backlash that followed, then circles through college years, grief for her mother, and…

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Why you'd press play

You want Rosalyn Sandry's story told with honesty, humor, and real fallout.

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