gAy A: The Queer Sober Hero Show

Living Fearlessly Queer & Sober with India X Miller

• Steve Bennet-Martin, India X Miller • Season 2 • Episode 49

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Hey there, Super Sober Heroes! Your host Sober Steve is here with 1,357 days sober, and this episode is extra special because we are recording in person for the first time! I’m thrilled to welcome India X Miller, a powerful advocate, trans activist, and sober warrior who has been navigating the world of recovery for over 40 years.

India shares their incredible journey of sobriety, from getting clean as a teenager to experiencing relapse and reclaiming their recovery. We talk about the unique challenges of being trans and sober, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Florida, and how to stay strong and connected in recovery despite all the obstacles.

From navigating gender identity to breaking barriers in 12-step spaces, India opens up about resilience, authenticity, and fighting for visibility and acceptance in both recovery and the world at large.

✨ Topics Covered:

  • India’s journey through addiction, relapse, and long-term sobriety
  • The power of visibility as a trans person in recovery
  • How to navigate religious trauma in 12-step spaces
  • The importance of gender-inclusive language in recovery
  • Finding strength in community and creating LGBTQ+ safe spaces
  • India’s work in media & advocacy, including their radio show

Connect with India X Miller:

📲 Instagram: @IndiaXMiller

📲 Tik-Tok: @IndiaXMiller
📻 Radio Show: Trans Cis Her on WSLR (WSLR Website)

Want More Queer Sober Community?

🌈 Join Here Queer Sober! We’re hosting a sober LGBTQ+ conference in NYC this September! Connect, learn, and celebrate with us. Learn More & Register Here

🔗 Follow gAy A on Instagram: @gAyApodcast

🎧 New episodes drop every Thursday! Hit subscribe so you never miss a show.

💬 Have a topic or guest suggestion? DM me on Instagram or email gayapodcast@gmail.com!

Thank you for tuning in, and remember: Stay queer. Stay sober. Stay unapologetically YOU. 💖✨

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Steve:

Hey there super sober heroes, it's your host sober steve here with india miller Hello in person if you are watching us And I am so privileged for you to be after over Hundreds of episodes. You're my first in person guest.

India:

Yeah. I'm gosh. I didn't know that.

Steve:

I've had even people in town But you know like friends of ours like richard has been on the show but we did it virtually because he was At work, so you're the first person actually in the studio.

India:

I'm so flattered.

Steve:

it's very exciting.

India:

to do it

Steve:

Yes, and so I'm very excited for this interview today. I am 1, 357 days sober, and I am grateful for this opportunity to be here with you So why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners and the viewers?

India:

Hello, I am India X Miller formerly Jonathan Miller And I'm in the middle of getting that my name is legally changed but I haven't updated my driver's license because of issues going on with passports and things right now, but I moved to Sarasota, Florida two years ago at Christmas time, unexpectedly, and I'm from everywhere, but I sound very Minnesotan so they'll never believe I'm a native Sarasotan, and I have been clean and sober this time for a little over two years. I had eight years clean. And made a decision to use my mom's pain meds as her caregiver the last two nights because my back hurt, and it's all I had, and I thought that was okay, and it wasn't. And I had a talk through with my sponsor, and two nights really unleashed the beast in my chaos.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

If I was really working my program for me, you know that I work and stuff like it, I wouldn't have done that because I know how it could have ended.

Steve:

Yeah, I mean I can definitely understand. I appreciate that people like you sharing your stories of relapse because so far I am a one chip wonder but like I knock on wood every time I say that because I also know that Anything could happen and I never know what will happen because I am still relatively early on in this and I have Hopefully many years of life left in me. Yeah, just want to make sure like hearing stories like yours of like It's still bad out there. I'm like, I listen to y'all and I believe it because I know it's bad enough out there for us sober people sometimes. I bet if I was adding drinking and drugs into living in this world right now. Yeah. It'd be very difficult.

India:

I was a one chip wonder, I would be celebrating 40 years. That's how long I've been in the world of recovery. I was 17 when I came into treatment the first time.

Steve:

Yeah. Today, looking at your life and how difficult things can be in general, what would you say is your favorite part of being sober?

India:

Really getting to be fully present and having opportunities. I can do anything when I'm sober. When I'm using like I literally can't do anything whether I'm like, And my use varies depending on what's going on or if I'm just I'm not one who has a drink and immediately I'm like, you know crashing the next day

Steve:

I'm

India:

mainly because you know that we talk about substances.

Steve:

Okay.

India:

All right. So the alcohol just makes me sick Yeah, and so I get really sleepy and I'm always known to go to the bathroom and take a cab home because people don't want to leave but it introduces that thought process that I can have substances and manage them okay, and I can't because if I have a drink whether it's a week or, but I'll get to a place where I'll be like, I'm heavy, just like a, just a little skosh of meth would make me thinner. I'll just do it for a week. Or typically it's this I want, psychologically I want to do something with a bad guy with a parole officer and problems and not compliant. Dialogue about how the disease continues to progress, and it does not pick up.

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

like I came in like functional at 17 somewhat. And then I, we had some clean time. I went back out. It became like a party girl and was very successful as a party girl. And it was a lot of fun until it wasn't. And that was during the time where everybody was dying debate community. And that was my support network. And some lesbian women too, of course and some other trans people, but it was really painful and my experience coming out, I didn't have any family, for eight years. And so that's a whole nother long story. I get to show people that you can go through a lot. Like I've gone through Really wonderful experiences of traveling the world and like 70 countries and being an executive and throughout my gender journey and throughout, navigating difficult times. And I think it's really, powerful. For me, that I know that I can get through what's going on as a transgender woman, I would get very out and very proud of it, and I lead with being trans. I don't lead with being a woman and that's not everybody's perspective, but, I'm a trans woman. I'm a woman because I was born with a condition, that I have to work through. being a trans woman in Florida is even more.

Steve:

I

India:

was

Steve:

gonna say, my heart breaks for like my brothers and sisters and non binary like family like everywhere in the world, but like even in my own backyard and like you are doing the fight every day and it's so easy for us to look at everything that's fucked right now because it is. But what can you say makes you happy to be part? of this community and this movement today, despite everything that's going on around us.

India:

I ended up in Sarasota by accident and it is, I'm not talking figuratively, it is literally the epicenter of the Christian nationalist movement. I rented a vacation rental to bring my mom to who had Alzheimer's for the winter, and we wanted Gulf Shores, Alabama, and we ended up here. And I believe that whatever we call a higher power, whatever is supposed to happen, I ended up here at probably one of the most challenging times. For a transgender person to be here and I have I'm in meetings all the time with this woman who, helped offer the don't say gay bill and I'm there and I'm saying gay and I'm saying trans so it just I feel hopeful. I feel a sense of purpose. I feel outraged. But I don't use anything chemically to get through that. And I'm proud of that. Yeah. I'm really proud of it and I get to go into a lot of organizations and share my story. And I do like a weekly thing at a treatment center here that I get to go into. And it's a organization that historically has not been supportive of people. And they've let me come in there Yeah. And say, I don't believe in a deity. Yeah. That's not my thing. And talk about my religious trauma growing up and, how just the word God is triggering and churches that can be triggering and And I get to do that and I feel like those people, when they come out into whatever rooms they're going to go to for recovery or whatever programs, hopefully I've left them with a pretty good, at least an open mind that, they can meet somebody who is transgender or LGBT or queer and have a positive experience. Because when I first moved here, I went to a 12 step meeting. And I've never had anything like that happen in my life. I went to give someone a hug, and at the end of a big meeting that's what we do in that program. And he recoiled from me and told me to fucking kill myself, you fucking faggot. And that is not the general person here, but it was like, I just was like, where am I? And then I got the phone call from and parenthood that they couldn't fill my prescriptions because the governor had changed the laws, it's so bad here in Florida that that's, that's just so normal that it's I'm not even going to tell a trans person that the hormones they started 36 years ago because I came out as trans in 1989 originally, Before the internet and there was no hate. It's just like the demons were inside my own head, versus now. So I love that I get to be a face in the community and addiction and alcohol abuse and, is has been such a rampant part of society, but so much in, in the LGBT queer. Community, I think, and I have a lot of, ideas why that is for me, but it's I gave up so much to be who I was, That it's and in my generation the thought of having children as a LGBT or queer person wasn't even in the cards and it's so it was like, okay, I just party every night and everybody's got to go home to their kids and, I'm definitely that person where the party is fun and then very quickly it's not.

Steve:

Yeah, the party is fun, And then I want to go right now the party's over.

India:

And so I helped start a new LGBTQ and allies meeting in a fellowship here where we didn't have one.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

That right now, I knew I was transgender ever since I knew the word of transsexual, I knew that was me. But all of a sudden, it's a political issue, and these problems we don't bring politics into meetings, just because you're calling it a political issue, this is who I am. Yeah, it's your human rights, and that's the thing. It's a medical issue.

Steve:

Just because one person in one role says that it's a political issue it's not.

India:

really difficult to navigate feeling comfortable sharing what makes me want to relapse, because it is, not that I want to relapse, but that is what is, It's disturbing me on every level, so it's hard, it's tough times to navigate them.

Steve:

Yeah, I can. It's making me sure you encounter things like that all the time in meetings, but like I had even the other day I went to my first ACA meeting and so much of that was like powerful information learning about like myself in a new way. But also one of the people at the meeting was wearing an American flag on their T shirt and automatically that put all of my like emotional defenses up in a way. That I normally wouldn't, and it's just so sad that as they were sharing, I was like, also, I wasn't wrong, either, and it's just it's sad that that's become something that is almost a weapon against us, but it's also something that, like, when people wear it, it's to meetings, or bring it things up into meetings, or politics, but it's just, it gets so dicey.

India:

veterans that I know, fought for that flag, and it means so much to them, and now, you see the flag. And you automatically assume it's somebody that hates you, And it's really traumatizing for those people in particular, but I feel the same, and I don't understand how the rainbow flag has become so traumatizing for other people, but the American flag shouldn't, traumatize anyone, but an enemy. But the president of the United States, It's called me anti american.

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

it's just because I'm a trans female. He literally said those words you know, I feel like that's instigating violence and like you are talking about enemies within and saying I'm anti american and I feel like most people don't I don't think they really feel that way, but it's those outlying not jobs.

Steve:

I've been to meetings before where it's the one or two people will change an entire shift of a group of 20

India:

Yeah. And so we, it's going to be, it's going to be. They have an impact on LGBTQ people in recovery, especially in places where they don't have, queer accepting spaces or stuff. It's important for me to go to those meetings and talk about the trauma of losing everyone to AIDS. We have that similar experience. And a lot of them were straight people, but they were addicts. And everyone I knew was an addict or queer, and that, which was a fighting word back then. So there is that shared experience that's really helpful for me.

Steve:

What was your journey to recovery like?

India:

I was born to a mother who was on prescription amphetamines because she was gaining too much weight during the pregnancy and Valium. And so I would have been in that category of, however we identify babies that are born. and then I had a father who was, mentally ill and drinking was normal. We were offered alcohol like at 5, 6 years old we just didn't think about things like that back then, and so I'd go to the bars with my dad drinking a lot, and going to nightclubs at 10 years old and drinking ice cream drinks, as my identity started sorting itself out, the conflicts and stuff. I started at nine or ten realizing I could smell household things, and get feelings like nail polish and rosemint and kept progressing and then my life became more chaotic. It's hard to explain this in a short version but I ended up, living in a tire factory in high school with my dad, who was very mentally ill, like a metal hut with cement floors and a window Through high school he sold the company and moved and didn't tell me where I became homeless my senior year of high school and lived in a van showered at the truck stop and went to school. Everything was fine. Everything was always fine. And a teacher figured it out and put me into a house with another student that I didn't know their family and that's where I stayed. I was in Florida and I left and went up to Wisconsin to go to college. by then I was smoking pot a lot, I was introduced to stimulants and hallucinogens and it ended poorly. I was on the academic blacklist and then they politely just asked me to leave. my mother and my sister came and I was 17 years old. I know that because they took me three hours to a treatment center in Wisconsin, out in the country. And they stayed there. as soon as I turned 18, I walked out. that's where I first found 12 step mediums, and a part of my upbringing was, going to a, Pentecostal church, when it came to light that I found this boy attractive. I didn't know it was a problem and it was a huge problem, I was possessed by demons and I believed that I had exorcisms done from the church, so immediately my introduction into the 12 step programs was difficult because I've always had that experience of I was devoutly faithful.

Steve:

I

India:

had such a strong belief in my faith system, in my deity. I thought I had a calling to be, a priest, woman, or Catholic, a minister later. And not having vocabulary to understand what I was, I felt so different always and I felt different in the treatment center and everyone was like 50 years old, which was so old when I was 17 and everyone was there for alcohol and I was there for drugs and it felt really isolated and they were very shaming a lot of times about, you're a drug addict, we just can't control alcohol and that's the way it was then, So I went to different programs and that was my introduction. And I managed to get into it and stay clean, but I think it was more the social aspect of it, that was working for me. then I figured out I was trans, and that was a whole nightmare experience to come through. You know that, it's hard to rush through the story, but my coming out experience was very traumatic and my mother who had the best intentions and I know how horrible it sounds, but, her and I decided my best option was to kill myself and I tried and was not happy when it wasn't successful. When I woke up in the hospital and the psych ward and I kept trying every way I could in there. I just never believed I could have an okay life and I knew I was a girl and it didn't make any sense and I thought I must be schizophrenic and they were trying to convince me that I wasn't but it was the only thing that made sense to me to so deeply know who I was. And so I got committed to a group home for a year for the mentally ill and that's where I actually transitioned to female and so I had periods being clean, but I never truly embraced that concept that I have a disease I literally have. A disease and in every disease. This point is to kill you, right?

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

it's oh, my life is awful.

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

That's the way. Yeah, that's not how they work. Just get influenza. I'd feel better, and I always think I have it. That's my problem. I've got this and life takes off and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm 30 years old and I have nothing to show and I should work really hard and, make up for it and at times I had a lot of shame about being in recovery, I didn't have any shame about being, an addict because I was a party addict but, being clean and I worked, I ended up working in like Wall Street and, Talking about being a drug addict when you know people are dealing with millions of dollars. I was on the Equity side the investment banking side of things. And I still feel like that sometimes because now because i'm out speaking people come up to me They're like, we were going to leave here But we're staying because you said you're going to stay and i'm like, oh my god Like i've been on the psych ward and i'm like don't listen to me I've been in a psych ward, I've been a drug addict, I survived somebody trying to kill me, and torturing me, for hours in my home, And they've never been caught, I've lived through all of that but I really thought that, Being tortured for six hours in a chair in the basement and literally fighting to escape with my life. Obviously I will never use drugs again, right? That is such a horrific experience. That would not have happened if I wasn't using, because my judgment would have been better. I wouldn't even have been looking for a roommate because I would have had money. I wouldn't have wanted a party friendly one, I wouldn't have said I was trans. So I stayed working program, and doing things. But I couldn't get better. I wanted to stay in my house because I owned it for 25 years where it happened. And I went back and forth living as a guy over the years, not because I stopped feeling trans, but after eight years of living as a woman on hormones, I went back to living as a guy because all of my friends died of AIDS. I couldn't be working, hosting parties for a living, and doing drugs, And I had to figure out something completely new and I decided I needed my family and like maybe it would just be easier. And then my career took off out of nowhere. I stayed clean for about 7 years after I transitioned back. And I can remember the moment that I made the decision not to.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

And I was at a wedding in Napa Valley at a vineyard with 20 people and it was 1 of my employees and another employee was there. And I'm like, they're having like giving like wine from the vineyard there. And I'm like, it feels like technically wrong to not have a glass of wine at a vineyard for a wedding for this couple that I adore. And I remember my employee looking at me and being like, are you sure

Steve:

Yeah, I did

India:

Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, now I'm at the point where I think, if I use it, it goes downhill really fast. Yeah. But after that point, I had a program, then COVID hit, sponsor was relapsing didn't admit it, nodding off, and the pills fell out of her purse, and all of a sudden there weren't meetings and I was in a small town in Wisconsin at that point taking care of my parents because I moved over by them just because I couldn't stay in my house anymore. I was able to stay clean. I was able to transition back to female in that house where it happened and I had roommates and a pit bull and security system when that all fell apart, that was the exact same time my parents were failing living with my mom and her husband both had Alzheimer's, she had dementia, he had Alzheimer's, they both had cancer, and we made a quick decision that it would just make more sense than to pay. thousands of dollars a month for each of them to go into memory care. Memory care is a lot. I want to say it was like 9, 000 a month or something. It was just insane. For the two of them

Steve:

together?

India:

Yeah. And I did and then again, I thought I had it and I didn't even know there were zoom meetings There probably were but I didn't know about them and there is you know This was a very small town with a very small recovery community And I was like full time trying to figure out like how do you deal with people that are trying to wander out of the house? I Had to put alarms on things, and so it's just like putting my recovery first didn't occur to me as being important. Because I had such a bad experience, that alone would keep me clean.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

But for me, I need to not only do steps, I need to apply them. And I need to stay connected. If you told me I didn't need to go to meetings or do the program, and I'd be, I could stay clean, I'd probably do that sometimes.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

that joy and connection

Steve:

when I

India:

when I share some batshit crazy thing.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

And I'm like, I'm gonna share I know I'm the only transgender person in the room, but I just need to share where I'm at. And some guy with a huge pickup truck, and six baby mamas comes up He's like I really related your share and I'm like awesome. Yeah, I'm like, I can't imagine what part but it's So weird what people get out of just being real. Yeah, and in those meetings are my real space that's where I'm really authentic and I don't feel the need to put on a happy face or I don't really feel much like that anymore, pretty transparent for the most part, like I will cry on social media if I need to and I'll cry in a parking lot on you and Publix or something. I don't go there anymore actually it's important for me to be authentic there and I don't have any secrets at this point in my life. And I realized that's not everybody's approach, but I had a minor stroke in 2022, there's no such thing as a minor stroke, but I had COVID at my mom's funeral, and It was a really bizarre stroke that affected my cerebellum so it's hard for me to keep track of stuff anyway. I'm just, I have this wonderful luxury right now of just being completely, transparent and open and honest about being in recovery,

Steve:

I've definitely like when I first started my first thought like does an episode I was like what traditions i'll just say whatever I want as I learned I think like for me at least like with these podcasts like the anonymous stuff is like the people places and things but like I like talking about the fact that I do 12 step meetings Like I don't say specifically which ones a lot of times with people but like I feel like, when I'm out and about and connect to people the things that they connect with me about are, like, the fact that I'm sober from drugs and alcohol. Yeah. The fact that I've lost 80 pounds. The fact that I like, all the fucked up shit about me that makes me feel icky or that I used to feel shame over when I shared that out loud. That's what people connect with me about. Absolutely.

India:

And I think it's so important to share that I'm in recovery. I think it's so important to share that I'm trans because I never realized that some people don't know that I'm trans. I know it's important because I think it's relevant to why I'm usually talking about what I'm talking about.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

And I think it's so important for people to know that I'm in recovery. You take on that burden that I think the program intended that if I fail, then it makes the program look bad, but every approach for recovery has a failure rate and a success rate. I wish we could look at some of those things. in 12 step world, and realize like we evolve and, from the time that these programs are written to now, when we live in a digital age and stuff, maybe there's room to like, think about some of these concepts differently, but I find that's really difficult.

Steve:

leave and leave the rest or take what I want and leave the rest.

India:

but they're the ones who told me to

Steve:

take it,

India:

It's hard, right? And it's just like gender inclusive language, is a big battle in the programs. And I'm like, why? That is not a fundamental part of the program. if we can

Steve:

update the name of our gulf so quickly. Why can't we update the name of how we've been calling our friends and loved ones?

India:

if we're going to talk about, God being our higher power And so many people if you just look at the world, so many people are not believing in God the time this was written. Yeah. Why not be more open minded?

Steve:

I like higher power most of the time, and I'll use God for a shorthand, but if I do shorthand and I'm writing, I normally just write HP, but for me, it's higher power, For other people, it's God. For other people, it's the universe.

India:

I have a secret decoder ring that I can take God and turn it into HP, but when I'm actively feeling very persecuted By the same religion that I grew up in That god becomes that god in my head pretty easily when i'm in my trauma, I don't want to go to meetings. I don't want to work steps with the word God, you know, and I know that I'm supposed to be well enough that I can, say group of druggies or I can say, greater understanding of what I'm doing, and sometimes it's just really hard for me to do that I've gone to some secular meetings and things, but the controversies that we've put in the 12 step programs of that's not the program or that's not I go to some inclusive meetings that, use gender inclusive language, and the readings that like it's not, the program because that's not, you can't mess with that. I'm gonna do what I need to do to not use drugs and alcohol.

Steve:

that's why I'm very glad, like, when I got sober, it was like a Zoom 9pm queer beginners meeting in New York City. It was all about protecting everyone's feelings. And it got very difficult as time went on when I was doing service on the back end of having to protect everyone's feelings. But I appreciate what it does. It's right off the bat it was always gender inclusive. To the point where when I would go to meetings in town, and they were queer, and still to this day in 2025, use gendered Language and sometimes end with the our father I'm, just like what I can't do that about that. I'm, just like I don't understand it but at least like now like I don't like I used to like Visibly roll my eyes or like a fall or want to leave and now I can just like rip my teeth A little bit or some days it doesn't even bother me if i'm working my own program very well but like it's hard because it's just like When it's like our people, especially like we expect safe spaces, I feel like.

India:

mean if you've been like, if you've been molested or sexually assaulted To expect that person to come into a program that has the word God, if you've been, ritually abused, in the church or like I was had, exorcism done until you're either possessed by demons as a teenager. That's a lot. Is it catching our recording? Yeah, it is. Oh, perfect. I'll land the dismount. Yes. It's a lot, and I just wish we'd be more open minded. You know about that and I feel like it doesn't exclude people who believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior or any God. it's just I'm so not resistant to change that it's hard to understand people that are gonna throw this up the risk that somebody might die From addiction.

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

It's like it's that important to me to keep the word Men and women or the word God or the our father prayer, when I know we were based off. I don't know what we need to grow, but yeah, things can grow and change. And that we're in this country.

Steve:

you are part of the change and that's one of the many things that I love about you.

India:

I'm trying. But even in the LGBTQ community, living in Florida is so different from anywhere I've lived. Because, yeah, I think people that are from here in particular, people that come here, feel this need to be behaved women or well behaved gays and some are, some people, that's just their natural being I can be a corporate American, but I don't need to be and I should be celebrated the same, whether I have purple hair or I'm wearing, a suit and that's hard to do here, and so I feel like the diversity community sometimes down here feels like the Stockholm Syndrome almost,

Steve:

we make our kidnappers happy so that they don't us go

India:

along with it?

Steve:

make the people like, treat us really nice when we get to the camps? I'm like, I would rather fight not to be in the camps.

India:

environment and don't get me wrong, I love my life here. I have been treated so well here. It happened on a zoom down here too, because all the other 2, 000 people that I've met in programs here have been supportive and nice, for the most part. That's my disease mind. Wants me to focus on that person.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

And I was telling you before we started recording that I had some guy in a parking lot today. I asked him to smash you in the face and it wasn't even because I was trans, it was because I would talk to him about, do you have any people that come into your shop?

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

Do you have any immigrants?

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

Triggered this, what I think was biracial. I'm pretty sure it was a biracial person. To do all of that. Like yelling at me. And I'm like, you're lucky you're a girl or I'd kick your ass. And I'm like at least it was gender affirming, right? Yeah. I had no makeup on. I was just buying a doughnut, If everyone doesn't know why that exists, I'll tell you right now, it comes from the concentration camps in Germany. We were forced to wear these in the streets of Nazi Germany to identify us as queer people so we could be humiliated and mocked and then eventually put in concentration camps. And when the allies liberated the concentration camps, all the people who weren't LGBT were freed.

Steve:

And

India:

I can't imagine what that felt like for people like you and I that were there when we realized we didn't get freed from the concentration camps. We got moved into prisons. And I'm like, just that moment of surviving the horrors of Auschwitz and then that moment of oh my God, we finally were free. And then you're left behind. And I relate to that so deeply. Because I felt that. When we had a black president, I'm like, oh my gosh, we're gonna have, a new vision that everybody has equality and equal opportunity. And so it's so disorienting. For me to be at the place that we're in right now when we know there are XX chromosomes and XY chromosomes, and people are telling me, you can't change your DNA. I'm like, but you don't know what mine is, because there's also X, and people just have an X that don't have any Y, or another X, there's people that have three Xs, and there's people that have both and we know why some of that happens, right? We know that a boy and a girl, twins that are in the womb, right? If one absorbs the other one, we know that's a parasitic twin, like we know this through science. And we know when that happens, you can have both XX and XY cells in different parts of their bodies. I don't know why it's difficult for people to understand that things happen in the amazing process of being born.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

And I've always been an advocate that I don't need to defend why somebody is gay. If you Love vaginas and you were born with a penis and that's your thing You're like a straight man, but you go to a gay club and you're like that music is so much better

Steve:

Yeah,

India:

And they're not raising kids and they're having fun. I'm gonna be gay like that should be okay Yeah, that should be okay in a society that you just want to be gay. I don't think that's the case for most people. But it should be okay. We don't, shouldn't have to defend it, but boy, as a transgender person right now, and even in the queer community, And it has always been mixed bag.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

When I came out as trans we were not allowed in a lot of men's gay clubs. We didn't really have a lot of lesbian clubs around in those days, but I went to a big club in Los Angeles with all my gay friends who wanted me to come because I was going to all the circuit parties and things, and they would not let me in. Called Probe. And it was a big old scene, and I had to take off my platforms, that was the final straw, they weren't going to let me in, and they told all the guys that I was with to go into the club ahead of me, because they were afraid they'd get beat up, and that I'd get beat up, and some stranger gave me his combat boots, and I put his combat boots on, and he walked down the street. Barefoot, and I went into that club and had an amazing night and ended up going back there. This was like 93 probably and talking to their employees about being transgender, and then that was the bell of that club And so total drugs killed everything for me. And I used to go talk to classes of psychiatrists, you know about my experience like I went from being desperate to stay alive Yeah to thriving, if I'm just allowed to be and again, this was before the internet. It's that's how we change things or inform people through our stories. And that's why I think this is so important. Yeah. And I think documenting stories on the internet, and books, and understanding where we've come from is always going to be important.

Steve:

Yeah I mean with all of that being said to close it out for someone if they're listening and they're struggling to stay sober What would you say is like the number one thing in this while we're living in right now that helps keep you? sober

India:

I would say it's as much as I can do In giving back is very helpful for me. I get to do a weekly recovery class at a place and I get to tell my story as part of the 12 step fellowship that I'm in. I feel connected to those people and it gives me an additional incentive because I don't want to see them use over that.

Steve:

Yeah.

India:

I don't want to see them give up their joy, and so that helps me a lot. And then just being open to meditation medicines or medications like East versus West and things that I've traditionally been pretty close minded about. I even go to church. I volunteer at a lot of churches. I do not identify as a Christian. But I've gotten to a place where I love the concepts that I've read about in that message of social justice in particular and helping, disenfranchised, marginalized people focusing on keeping myself spiritually centered somehow, and to varying success and then I have a great sponsor I have a partner who's in recovery, which is amazing,

Steve:

and is also

India:

trans, which is even crazier, and a military hero, so that's really helpful for me too, but I'm not going to give up my joy, I'm not going to give up my life. I'm not going to wait backstage while we get through this there's no dress rehearsal we are on stage, this is my life, and I'm going to live it, and if I'm going to go out over something, it's not going to be somebody that hates on me, that's just not how my story's going to go,

Steve:

and

India:

Just the more Connected I am in the recovery world the better.

Steve:

thank you for coming on

India:

this for so long.

Steve:

Yes, I was gonna say I'm sure that this is only the beginning You'll have to come back because you're gonna hopefully I think you're gonna be involved in here cruise over with us, correct

India:

I hope I can afford to go to New York then

Steve:

we'll figure out even if it's like me driving you and Jack and like we road Trip it up like we're gonna get you up.

India:

I desperately want to be there and then I want to have you on my radio show, and then you can try to help me figure out podcasting. I'm just trying to get my voice out there as somebody who's not scared as a trans person right now, because I realize so many are, and I understand why.

Steve:

Perfect. I'll definitely put all of your apps for your social medias in the show notes. Any other special websites or places they should find you.

India:

I think I'm India X Miller on everything that I know how to use,

Steve:

Miller on the show.

India:

Trans Cis Her, C R A N S C I S H E R radio on WSLR. They have an app that you can download and listen to. Archive on there.

Steve:

Perfect. Love it. Excellent. I'll be right back here. Thank you so much listeners And yes, you will be back here before you know it So thank you and stay tuned for another episode of gay a next thursday. Bye

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