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Hi there, my name is Cary and I'm part of the Trans Canada project, but I am also Trans.
Kelly and I are asking people across the country to tell their stories to let us find out more about them and so it's not really fair to ask all of them to tell their stories if we're not prepared to tell our stories as well. So this is a real challenge for me just like it is for everybody else who's going to participate in the Trans Canada Project but here we go!
I'm 55 years old. I live in Elmira Ontario, which is just a little town in Ontario, and I honestly do not even know if there's any other trans people in the town here. There probably are but we haven't met yet. Hopefully, we'll meet someday and get to share each other's stories together in person.
I identify as non-binary trans and that's confusing for some people because they don't understand the non-binary part. People still can understand the whole being binary trans going one direction or the other all the way but this kind of floating in the middle is difficult for people to understand. But for me personally it was a huge relief and a real explanation to me to help me understand myself. When I understood that I didn't have to be completely one side or the other, that that I could be somewhere on the spectrum; somewhere in between.
It's been a long journey for me, I mean I'm 55 years old so obviously it's going to be a long journey. A lot of my life I struggled with dressing in women's clothes and I'm kind of ashamed to say that I hid a lot of stuff and I kind of snuck around about it and it really didn't feel very good to be doing that and it's still hard for me because a lot of my family doesn't accept the way I am and they will tell me so and some of them, when I try to explain it to them. they just shut down. They won't even listen and that's hard too because, you know, everybody feels like they can dump on me and tell me that it's wrong with being trans, but they don't like to hear me explain how it's okay, how it's even “right” what a wonderful thing it is too sometimes.
I mean I feel like I have learned so much by being trans. Once I started to accept myself, I started to learn to love better, to let go of all the crap that I was carrying with me and I still have some of those things still in there - it's grown in me and it's hard to get rid of some of those things, but I feel like I'm in a much better place now. I'm not hiding things. I can actually live an authentic life and I can work on those things much better.
Probably the thing that drives me the most is my faith. My faith in God. Lots of people define that differently but growing up in a Christian church I certainly have not thrown out all of the principles or the things that I learned through the Christian church. The moral foundation that it laid was good and I can still say that even though I struggle with some of the beliefs of some Christian people, I have a very strong faith and a few years ago I felt God telling me that, you know what, this is okay Cary. I'm okay with it. And it took me a long time to process that and get around that but eventually I started to accept that in myself and I was able to give myself some grace about it, feel better about it, and I learned a lot of things about love.
I got connected with communities that loved me even though I was trans and even some Christian communities, which was a surprise even to me because, you know, I didn't expect to find Christian communities that would be accepting of people who are trans and gay.
When I struggled with this, with being trans, I wrestled with it so much with god. I would pray so hard. I was so challenged by it and it was just really hard, but I find it interesting that since I’ve accepted it, since I’ve felt God's acceptance in it, that I feel the burden lifted. I feel lighter, you know? There are things in the bible that talk about the joy that comes in just trusting in God; in leaving things to him, and I really feel that.
You can say what you want about scripture verses that are interpreted a certain way, you know? You can argue all those things and I - let me tell you I can argue a lot of them right along with you but I cannot deny the experience of God in my life, and that's what guides me.
There's a lot of people who say they're Christian and are struggling with being gay or being bi or trans or whatever. I want to tell you that God loves you and that it's okay.
The greatest challenge for me has been just my family. I've found great support from a number of communities. I've found great support even from the community around me in general. I've been out, literally dressed, I mean when you're trans it's very visible to people, and you know, I'm sure people tag me as male and often a male in a dress or a skirt and that does still bother people sometimes. But it's been very good. I mean a lot of people are being very good about it, even if it does bother them. I have been accepted and it's been good.
But the greatest challenge for me has definitely been my family. I know they care about me and they want what's best for me and that when they tell me things it's coming from a good place. But honestly, when I challenge them, you know, what is really wrong with it? Why are you concerned? What are the things that … why do you see it as a problem? It's really hard for them to give me an answer and I know, I know that's because there really isn't an answer to that I mean I lived on the other side of that fence. I was one of those people who did that and I know that there is really no reason why this is wrong or bad. But it's very hard when you've been told that all your life, to believe that, and so my family is kind of still stuck in that place and I don't hold anything against them for that because I know what that's like.
Yeah, coming out has made things easier for me in a lot of ways because I feel more authentic within myself. I feel the shame of it that I had is gone and the burden of carrying that around and feeling like I'm hiding part of myself all the time, constantly trying to hide it, it's gone! There's still the challenge of being out as in, you know, visibly wearing this, and I don't mean the clothes, I mean like just visibly wearing the fact that I'm trans. Because being trans is very visible and people can easily see it. There's the challenge of doing that but being able to take all of that weight and the shame that was part of that and just letting it go has been such a huge blessing to me. And it really has brought a lot of joy to my heart and I find myself smiling more, laughing more than I have in a long time, and just in that way generally happy, even though there's other parts of my life where there are still challenges and things to be worked through and figured out.
I'm still in the process of this transition, and it's hard to say exactly where it will go. I mean who really knows what the future is going to be like? What it's going to hold? Who really knows how things are going to turn out? But I'm feeling good about the direction of this even though there are huge challenges ahead.
I listen to what other people say around me, other trans people, and I hear their stories. There can be a lot of hurt, and life can be difficult in some ways, but you know life has challenges no matter what you do. There are things that you have to face and you have to struggle with and you find your way through, and this is just one of those challenges it's just something that is and something I need to deal with and as I learn to deal with it and handle it it's much easier for me to have confidence in sharing it and just living it authentically with other people.
And I think (I hope) as I do that, and certainly with some of the experience that I've had, the more I do that, the more people see the authenticity of it, the more people learn that they can accept it too. And I think when people start to accept it they learn as well. They learn to be better friends. They learn to let go some of the things they thought were so important because they've been taught a certain way, and just grab a hold of something better; something bigger than what they've been taught.
I’m a morning person and I get out of bed pretty early, and I don't sleep a lot of hours but what gets me out of bed in the morning honestly? I don't know, just the idea of a fresh new day and “what will it hold” and the adventure of it all and just getting out there. This certainly is a grand adventure. My future could look like all kinds of things.
I suppose I'm coming out more and more - I mean just the very fact that I'm putting this video together is a huge step of coming out. And that can be really scary because I don't know how people will react. I don't know what other people will do and I have no control over that of course and even now I think it would be easier just to hide. Even if I just completed a transition, it would be a lot easier just to hide as a woman, perhaps, but doing that would be still hiding right? And I think I really want to live authentically. I really want to live the way I am and the way -- the way god made me.
If I could talk to myself 10 years ago, I don't know, I mean I would probably try and convince myself that I was okay first of all. I would probably try to tell myself that, you know, that this is fine, and you will be fine. But honestly, you know, 10 - 20 - 30 years ago things were not the same in the world it was a lot harder I think to come out. A lot harder to live this authentically. There were a lot more people that were very much against it and it was very much less understood than it is now. I think this is a much better time to be coming out. Honestly, I guess that makes me chicken, but that's okay too.
If I could remind myself of something in 10 years from now? Of course I don't know what I'll be like in 10 years, or where I'll be or what the world will be like in 10 years. But if I could remind myself of one thing in 10 years I think it would probably be the joy that I felt in just coming out and being able to just experience this and live authentically and just enjoy and appreciate the things that are around me. Because, you know, as life goes on you start to get used to things and some things get easier but I think things also, you know, they become normalized and you start to lose a little bit of that joy in it. So I think it would just be to remind myself of how good this feels right now.
My biggest dream for the future would just be that people would love each other and just see each other as people. It doesn't matter what color, what race, what religion, what ethnicity, what gender, what sex; we're all people. We're all struggling. We're all working towards having a good life and most of us at least are working towards helping others to have a good life. My dream would be that everybody would do that. I mean, world peace and happiness right?
If I could tell people watching one thing, that thing would probably be; be yourself. Just you do you, I mean.
People worry sometimes that you're doing you would mean that you're gonna do crazy, stupid stuff and maybe some people would. We have to be careful of that too. But, you know, what if you live in joy and happiness and love for others and love for yourself? Then I think you're going to be on the right track; just do you. Enjoy who you are. Share that with everybody else because the diversity that we have is all part of the blessing of life, and just, please share that with everyone else.
So, I appreciate the time that I've had here to be able to share my story with you, and I hope you're enjoying all of the other stories in the Trans Canada Project. If you have a story to tell we would love to hear from you; please contact us through our website www.transcanadaproject.ca. if you know somebody who you think has an amazing story, please have them contact us we'd love to talk to them. We want to let people know that Trans people are just regular people, and some of them even extraordinary people, who have fantastic stories to tell, and we want to share those stories with other people. Of course, we can't do all of this without your support, and I would just ask that you consider supporting us either by sending us a donation or by supporting us regularly through our Patreon. Thank you very much. Don't forget to like and subscribe below to see lots more videos about people's stories.
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