from cocoon to butterfly
somatic coach and trans woman Joelle Marcelle opens up about gender transition, body wisdom, and what it means to unfold into the fullness of who you are — in this honest conversation on the Tea & Couch podcast.
originally featured on Tea & Couch with Alisa, a podcast about sexuality, body awareness, and honest conversations.
in this episode of Tea & Couch with Alisa, Joelle Marcelle — somatic coach, bodyworker, transwoman, and neurodivergent identical triplet — sits down for a candid conversation about gender transition, the role somatics played in her self-discovery, and what it means to live fully as yourself.
what you’ll hear in this conversation
early gender memories and growing up in the spotlight — Joelle shares a vivid childhood memory of crying under her blanket, wishing to grow up as a woman — a memory she spent years trying to suppress. growing up as an identical triplet in Estonia, where gender was always collective (“we are boys”), made it even harder to hear her own inner voice. add to that years of media appearances, modeling, and a band, and there was very little space to quietly explore who she was.
finding herself in anonymity — it wasn’t until Joelle moved to the US in 2016 — where nobody knew her — that the first real feelings began to surface. later, during her masters in Nashville in 2019, she found herself surrounded by a uniquely diverse community where nearly one in eight people were trans. being around real trans people for the first time, rather than just a concept on social media, created a resonance she couldn’t ignore.
how somatics helped her know she was trans — working with her somatic coach for over three years, Joelle found a way to move beyond the question “how do I know?” and into actual felt experience. the first time a friend did her makeup and she looked in the mirror, she felt it — pure joy, relaxation, and what she later recognized as gender euphoria. “this feels right. this feels like home.” that body-based knowing became her compass.
“born in the wrong body” — why this narrative misses the point — one of the most powerful moments in this conversation. Joelle pushes back on the dominant trans narrative: “I don’t think our bodies are wrong.” in somatics, the body is seen as wise. her transition isn’t about correcting something broken — it’s about honoring what her body knows. reclaiming that framing has real stakes: when trans people are seen as wrong, medical professionals feel entitled to decide what’s right for them.
gender expression doesn’t have to perform for anyone — Joelle talks about the pressure trans women face to either be “hyper-feminine” or risk not being taken seriously as women at all — and why both judgments miss the point entirely. the wider our acceptance of gender expression, the freer everyone becomes, trans or cis.
how transition changed her relationship with her body — through her own somatic work and bodywork training, Joelle began noticing how many of her physical armorings — tensions, contractions, patterns of holding — were deeply gendered. the shift from masculine over-compensation to softness wasn’t just emotional. it was physical. she also talks about the unexpected changes that came with hormones: a smoother felt sense of life, shifting attractions, and a body that started to feel more like her own.
the butterfly cycle — when Joelle came out publicly in the fall of 2024, she processed the overwhelm of unexpected support with her coach. together they returned to a metaphor she’d been sitting with for years: the caterpillar that melts into goo inside the cocoon — not destroyed, but completely rearranged. emerging wasn’t the end. it was the start of a new cycle. in somatics, this maps onto what’s called the rhythm of aliveness: awakening, increasing, deepening, completing — a cycle that runs through all of life, inside and out.
watch the full conversation
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