Meet Jennifer (L) (She/Her)

What follows is a transcript from Jennifer's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/rxHC2cAZwn4

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Hi, my name is Jennifer Anastasia Levine. My pronouns are her and she. I am an IT Technician by trade. I received my credentials in 2005 I think it was, without looking on them. I just got them changed over last year to my new name and so far it's been pretty good. 

Photo by: FOTOGRAFIA INC

When I was 10 I told the doctor I wanted to wear girls clothes and they put me in a youth facility in Kitchener/Waterloo called Lutherwood, and there some bad stuff happened. But however, that's behind me. The worst part of it was over by the time I was 14, with Lutherwood, Mom found out what was going on at Lutherwood and pulled me out of there as fast as she put me in. I moved forward. At 15 I met some people at a center in Guelph called “change now” and one of the girls knew somebody in Toronto at the 519 and they introduced me to her, and she got me a meeting at the Clark Institution (I believe that's what it was back then in the 90s) The Clark Institution gave me a pamphlet on all the stuff I had to do to transition in the beginning, so I took that, read over it. Well I was only 15 at the time, so ultimately this was no good for me because I had to wait till I was 18.

Before I came out it was a single parent family, three girls, one boy, and I don't know where that boy is now. He's somewhere but I don't know where he is. And he was off doing everything by himself. And I’m self-taught, so everything I've learned, I taught myself, including my makeup.

It wasn't all at once. There are people that knew in the beginning and people that didn't know. A little bit of experimenting here and there and everywhere; that's just the way it came in. It just, it flowed. Kind of flowed that way. 

Party in Toronto made my life so much better. It helped me come to terms with some of the stuff that I was dealing with. It made me feel more comfortable being in that situation, because I had the support from people acknowledging that it was cool. I wasn't doing something stupid. I was considered cool to wear makeup. Like, for me to get up on stage as a DJ and put a dress on, man I’m rocking it, I’m cool, I’m the DJ that they want to hear, because I’m playing the tracks that they want to hear. So, I can. It doesn't matter how I look on stage. 

I still get on stage and I get cheered for, no matter how I look. So that whole community was a big support to me, and I've been DJing since I was 12. I got into it to get away from drinking, the law, and doing stupid stuff and it was an outlet for me. And it still is an outlet for me. I worked for four of the main… four of the biggest clubs in Toronto, downtown Toronto. I was made. I didn't have any problems with anybody. People knew me from the club. They knew I was DJ smiles. (Now I’m DJ Linus and DJ DSG) I had a good job. I had a good life. 

When I was 38, I went to Dr Tom and I came out to him. The day I went to Dr Tom's office, I was sitting outside having a cigarette, I was just shaking and I said okay, you remember that thing I said I had to talk to you about Dr Tom? He's like, it's time? I said yeah, it's time. I said, you see my skinny jeans, right? He's like, yeah. Doesn't say nothing about it because guys wear skinny jeans. Well, I said my jeans are women's. The only thing I’m wearing right now is my coat, my hat, and my t-shirt. Those are the only things that are men's. My shoes, my underwear, everything is women's. I said, normally I wear a bra, except for when I go out and stuff, and I, and he was like yeah. Like I said, he said that explains a lot. 

And when I talked to Dr Tom, when I came out to him. I’m like please don't look at me like I’m crazy because I know I’m not and I know this is a thing. And I know. He's like, that's good, okay? Well and then he started talking to me about Dr Maras..., I believe it's Marasala, and she works at the Quest clinic in St Catharines, and he wanted to get us connected with Quest. Well, after three months of Quest not calling us back, I took it upon myself to go on the internet and I went to the Sherburne clinic in Toronto. I got the pamphlet on how to prescribe hormones and blockers to transgender patients. I read over it, before taking it to Dr Tom and I gave it to Dr Tom. Dr Tom goes, okay let me read over it. And in a few days, I had my prescription for hormones. 

And in 2000 I moved to Niagara which made it better on me. I didn't have to hide myself where I had to hide myself in Guelph because it was homophobic as you would say, and it wasn't. Getting out of Guelph and being in Niagara has been a pretty good thing for me, and I don't think I would be where I’m at without Dr Tom. He deserves a high five. So, I think he jumped into this with no knowledge.

I wasn't waiting. I had name change papers signed, put in the mail, on its way, six to eight weeks my name was coming back to me. Dr Tom signed off on it. I went from Jeffrey Thomas Michael Burke to Jennifer Anastasia Levine. I took on my father's last name because my last name Burke was not my last name. It was my older sister's last name, who my mom was married to her father and not mine. So, I took my father's last name and I said to myself anytime I got a chance my name I would take my dad's last name. And I did that. 

Yeah, my coming-out story… My Mom is a superhero. She called me from the hospital, she's like yeah, they just asked me who my next of kin was and they said Jeffrey Burke, and she's like, no, my daughter Jennifer Levenne. And she just calls me up, she's like yeah, I just called you my daughter, and yeah, best part ever. My mom knew because I had all the clothes, and she was always telling me to throw them out. Except with mom, mom's like my bestie. She's been there my entire life. She still lives with me and we get along real well best roommate in the world. So mom, superhero mom, high five.

My mom is my supporter, she's my bestie. Can't talk to her about some stuff. When I mention surgery, she kind of tilts away from it, but now that I’m getting to my surgery letters, she's now gonna face it, that I’m gonna be laying in bed and she's gonna have to help me and what not. And she can't do a lot because she's got a bad back and stuff. So I’m trying to find ways around surgery to not be in bed as much as I’m supposed to and be able to get out of bed. 

So, yeah, I used to go till three, four or five o'clock in the morning. As soon as I heard those birds chirping, I knew I had to get home, because Mom knew I wasn't home. She'd kill me. And I’m afraid of my mom! She scares me. And to this day, my Mom scares me. 

Well the girls were great, because boys weren't allowed in the bedroom but the parents knew that I was raised with all sisters, so they knew I wouldn't do anything because my mom would kill me. I would go over to their house, have sleepover movie night, whatever on the weekend, Mom would get rid of me for a night, right, so she was happy for that, and it was just like, let's put makeup on him. So okay, whatever. Right? After a while, it just became a thing with me, and I could walk down the hall and go in their bedroom, but their boyfriend was at the house and he couldn't even go down the hallway. He was pissed.

I had a girlfriend that… I bought my kilt for St James, my knee-highs and my blouse. But I had it at a girlfriend's house and I would go to their house and change in the morning and wear my kilt to school. 

Over the couple of years being in Niagara, I didn't have anybody to talk to. Mom was in Winnipeg the past two months. I met Steven. Thank you Steven, high five. For shits and giggles I put an ad on a photography site for Toronto, explaining I’m a transgender model looking for a photographer to help me build my portfolio. Because I modeled from the time I was 12 to the time I was 14, or 10 till 14, and Mom always had me busy with my sisters figure skating, modeling, yeah, I did everything the girls did, pretty much, except for hockey. And Steven, I met Steven. We did the first photo shoot paid me $60 for three hours of my time, which was to me, I really didn't care about money. I just cared about photos, and I met Steven, and Steven took the first photo shoot, and we did the first photo shoot, I think, three months ago. 

Ultimately Steven went home, and he was looking over the new photos, and he sent me a link. This link with my photo on a website. And when I started going over the website and seeing what it was all about, and I was reading about it, and I was seeing that they're transitioning later on in life, I started reading over more to see what kind of information that they gave and they give pretty much accurate information, how to start and do your transition, and how to go about things. There are some things that were there that I had access to, like PFlag - high five to PFlag. 

I've talked to some other female models in Toronto, that I’m supposed to meet in the summertime for my birthday, hopefully, if COVOD is gone. And because of Steven, my life is moving in a different direction. And it all extends from me putting that out on Facebook in a modeling group. So ultimately Steven has given me a new reasoning of get out of bed. High five Steven! 

Ultimately, it's because of Steven, I've been given that reason to get out of bed now, and I've been given more energy, and I've been getting the adrenaline that I had when I was in clubs and feeling good, the way I felt like I was back on stage 

My biggest dream for the future is marriage, a happy life, to get my son back, who was taken from me when I came out. Yeah my son is a big part of my life seeing him again would be probably the best. That's the biggest thing I've been fighting over, with my anxiety and my depression, is my son, because just the smallest thing set me off. I would tell my son that, you know what? Dad is still here I’m still Jeffrey Thomas Michael Burke to you. And the day I told my son I changed my name, I explained to him that I wasn't happy and when I told him he was like dad as long as you're happy. That's all that matters, and this flows back into where I said if you want to talk to my mom because my mom will say, she asked my son the same thing and he says as long as dad's happy. 

I had an issue at Tim Hortons one time. Out of respect for the two older ladies that were there I went into the men's bathroom and said women's because I knew the old ladies would go and complain. So I went in the men's bathroom and three kids came in, threw stuff over and caused a problem, and said I was making noises. Yeah, I was making noises. I was taking a poop! 

Ultimately I've had issues with the bathroom but I’m not gonna let that hamper me! Please let me use the bathroom. All I wanna do is go pee. 

Man I even got stopped in Guelph by a cop that busted me when I was a teenager and he ran - he thought I was smoking a joint in my car. I was sitting downtown Guelph having a cigarette. I just drove to Guelph in the middle night for coffee. That was it. I sat downtown Guelph having a cigarette in my car before I go back to St Catherines and, cop pulls in, thought I was smoking a joint, comes up to my car and he's like, ma'am, err, can you please sit up? And I said... I sit up. He goes, Mr Burt? I says no it's Miss Levenne. He thought my id was fake because I hadn't received my birth certificate back yet. My driver's license was changed to my new name but it didn't have my gender change so he thought my id was fake. 

How can people help? People can help by not calling me sir. They can stop calling me he. They can stop referring to me as male pronouns and treat me as an equal, letting me use the women's bathroom. I am not going in there to do anything else but do my business. So that's what people can do to help 

I am set on my goals. I've been battling addiction. I have been dealing with issues from my life, childhood, and stuff that's happened to me over the years; bad things, evil things. And I've been... since finding my boyfriend Alex, I have come to accept some of the stuff that's gone in my past and throw it out there. I've been working with my psychiatrist to find things like; I have ADD. There's been so much that I've come to acknowledge and accept. 

From the day that Dr Tom signed my name change forms, I dropped that dress on. I didn't care what people thought or what they looked... I put that dress on and I went out. Hair, no hair, makeup, no makeup, I put my dress on, went out, dropped my forms in the mail, took a picture, posted it. And it's been fine sailing. So I don't see any challenges in my near future. I see battling infections and stuff from surgery as a possibility. But I I’m looking at that as hopefully Dr Tom will get me a PSW worker that can help me get up and out of bed, because alex can't lift me, because he's had back surgery. And my mom can't lift me up. So, I’m gonna need help getting up out of bed when I come home from the hospital. And that's about the only challenge I see that I faced. 

I started my transition and the best thing I could have ever done for myself. 

Peace, love, unity, and respect. Four words I've learned over the years that I live by, which is what everybody deserves, including myself, and I wish people would do that for all of us, every day, when they see us.

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Meet Jennifer (she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Jennifer's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/1hGAUlQDkQA

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Hi, my name is Jennifer.

I am 54 years old, from St Catharines, Ontario, and I am a proud transgender woman. This is my fiancée Evelyn, and we are engaged to be married next may. 

I identify as bisexual. I am attracted to both men and women. 

After coming out I joined a women's group that was incredibly accepting here in Niagara. About a year after joining the women's group, I was asked by the founder of the group if I would become a moderator, which is someone who helps with the group itself, hosts events, sometimes fills in for the founder of the group when she couldn't be at the meetings. At one point the founder of the group became pregnant and she asked me would I run the group while she was off on maternity leave and dealing with her child. This gave me the unique opportunity to host these groups for a period of time, and during that time, one of the meetings, Evelyn came in. 

Because I was made to feel welcome, I felt it was my responsibility to pass that on and make everyone else feel as welcome when they first come into the group. So I always made it a habit of spending some time speaking to that person that just came in for the first time because I know it's terrifying. So I made it a point to speak to her and make her feel comfortable as possible and I kind of had this feeling inside that hey we kind of connect on a certain level. And she kept coming for about another three or four weeks and I actually came home from a meeting one night and I spoke to my mom and I said, I think I met a woman that I’m very interested in I think I might actually ask her out.

The funny thing is a few weeks before that I had basically given up on dating. I actually announced to the group that I'm done I’m not going to ask anyone else out ever again, I’m not going to put my heart out there ever again because I had it crushed. But I came home and I told my mom I think I might ask her out for a coffee. And literally that Sunday - we meet on Tuesday nights, I was gonna ask her that Tuesday night - on Sunday Evelyn called me and said would you like to go out for a coffee? And so she beat me to the punch. It was funny. We went out for coffee and it was like two school girls, but we were laughing and giggling so much at each other we were both so nervous and that's basically all that happened right and so we talked a little bit and we kind of hit it off. And then we started going out afterwards on a couple of dates, and then finally we went to Niagara Falls for dinner one night and walked down to the falls, and that was the first time we kissed and it's been wonderful ever since that day. And last September the love of my life asked me to marry her and so this has been an incredibly (I know it's been difficult because of COVID but) last year was a wonderful year because my wife, my future wife asked me to marry her. So I’m very happy about that. 

I realized that there was something different about me at a very young age, I would say probably maybe eight or nine years old I realized that I was different from all the other boys as it were. I didn't quite fit in. I was always more interested in what girls were doing and what they had to do. I think the first time I realized something was different was going to school one day at the very first day of school and realizing that, hey all these girls look so pretty and wearing pretty clothes and it's like I’m just wearing jeans and a shirt, and I’m going I wish I could wear what they were wearing. And I think that's one of the first inklings I had that something was a little different with me. 

I grew up in a Catholic family and was going to Catholic school and Catholic high school and always realized there was something a little bit different about me but couldn't quite identify what it was and back in those days you never heard the word transgender in school especially a Catholic school the word just simply never came up. And it was very difficult for me growing up because I didn't have anyone to go to - to turn to - and to find out why do I feel so different inside. And that caused a lot of pain, a lot of suffering and I realized that I was very attracted to the female sides of things that I didn't really fit in with the boys that much. 

As I got older I kind of did a little bit more research and found out that there were people that didn't identify with the sex that they were born with that their gender was different and kind of understood a little bit more about what I was. And it did make it tough. We went to church every single week and there always seemed to be every so often this sermon in regards to how the gays and people who identify as transgender are abominations in the eyes of God and this made me very confused because I thought well how can I be an abomination of God? God creates everybody in a certain way and here I am being told that because of how I feel inside that I’m not rocking by God. And this led to suicidal thoughts as a teenager, in fact on two separate occasions I grabbed a bunch of pills and a bottle of alcohol and was gonna end my life on at least two or three different occasions. I got perilously close to doing so but I’m very glad that I did not, because life got better eventually. 

I suppressed these feelings as much as I could but every so often I would engage these feelings. I would go out and buy clothing and try it on and it just felt so wonderful to do so. And wasn't anything sexual but it just felt like this is what I believe I should be I’m definitely feel like I’m a girl. And I had to suppress these feelings because of the school I was going to, the people that I live with, my parents, I didn't feel comfortable coming out to them, then life kind of got in the way. And I met a woman, got married to her, had a child, did the whole life thing, tried to present as male as best as I could, I even joined a service group that was all men and tried to be - tried to give back to the community and the funny thing about it was is that I did this and I worked with a lot of young folks and I used to teach kids how to umpire baseball games believe it or not. And it was always the female empires that I seem to take the most care for, and I realized as I like I felt this way inside.

And eventually it got to the point that when I was approximately 50 years old, I had a life crisis a life-threatening crisis I had been diagnosed about 10 years earlier with type 2 diabetes and everything was going well I was in good health and then all of a sudden everything went to heck in a hand basket. And my health started deteriorating. I couldn't keep my sugars under control. My stomach was always hurting. I had all kinds of pain in my abdomen, and my doctor couldn't figure out what was going on. And after about three to six months of suffering with his pain and with the high blood sugars, he sent me to a specialist who diagnosed me with a rare type of diabetes which probably nobody's heard of. It's called diabetes 1.5 or also known as LADA which is Latent Autoimmune onset of Diabetes in Adults. And it's an autoimmune disease that mimics diabetes too but it's actually slightly different and it almost killed me. It was threatening to kill me at least. 

My pancreas was being attacked by the insulin that I was taking and um I was at a point where if it had continued much longer, I could have gotten to the point where my pancreas couldn't have recovered. And that kind of shook me and I realized at that point that all these feelings that I had inside that I’ve been suppressing, it's over I had to be happy I needed to start living my life the way I wanted to. All my life I felt that I kept this hidden and down and anyone who would talk to me would say that there was always this thing underneath the surface that I was hiding from people, and that I didn't seem happy. That I didn't seem... I had anger issues, I didn't seem happy, I didn't seem like... I didn't like myself, I don't know how other people could have liked me at that point. 

So finally I decided that it was time to come out to the world in the fall of 2017 I started coming out to my family and on February 17, 2018, a day I picked intentionally because it's my birthday, I had what I called my rebirth day, and I identified myself to the world as Jennifer for the first time ever and started living as female from that date forward. And it was the happiest day of my life. My family totally accepted me when I came out which has made my life very comfortable and to celebrate I went out and got my hair done that day had my makeup done and my family took me out to the mandarin for lunch that day. It was a very, very special day. 

I came out to my bosses at work about two weeks earlier telling them that I would be coming out as female after February 17th. And my bosses were very accepting and so much so that my boss sent me flowers the first day that I came to work as Jennifer, so they have been behind me 100% right from the start, which has made things very easy for me. 

When I decided to come out, I know a lot of women will wait until they can somewhat pass as female before they came out, but I decided I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait till I passed, so I came out right away and I know I didn't come anywhere close to passing as female and of course it made it difficult walking down the street and going to supermarkets and whatnot and getting the stares, getting the dirty looks, getting the comments. But I was taught by my mother to always walk with your head held high and a smile on your face so um I’ve always had that in my heart, is that despite all the odd looks just keep walking. You know you're a woman, you know it inside, just keep walking and own it. Be yourself. Always be yourself. And I don't care that I didn't pass I was proud to be transgender and yeah eventually the hormones kicked in and the hair started growing in and I started liking the woman that I seen in the mirror a lot more and I started giving her a lot more smiles as the days went on.

[Evelyn] She's had she's had her rough days. She's had her good days, she's had her bad. I do my best to keep her focused. And I try to keep her, like, I just try to calm her, and like, I always tell her that you're a wonderful person or you you're, you know, you're special. You know, I just try to help her through what she has, the rough time, rough days. 

[Jennifer] Part of that roughness was suffering constant delays in my gender confirmation surgery. I was eligible for surgery almost a year and a half ago and unfortunately my endocrinologist was at the point of retiring and as such I had asked him to send the letter to the government in order to fund my confirmation surgery. And on three separate occasions over a period of seven months he had failed to do so. And so I was getting depressed because it felt like I was never going to get this surgery. And Evelyn helped me through these depressive moments and it was really, really bad. And it was tough because it's like, it felt like it was taking forever to get it. And finally my psychiatrist got involved and basically pushed him in order to get the letter written and my psychiatrist also wrote to Montreal in order to kind of ask them hey listen this woman's been waiting for seven months for this doctor to send the paperwork in is there any way that you can rush her surgery through because she shouldn't be penalized because this doctor didn't do his job. And so they did. But guess what, COVID hit, and so it delayed everything again, and so a surgery that I should have had over a year and a half ago only got done last month. So it was a rough time there was very dumb times and Evelyn to help me through it.

[Evelyn] Yeah because a lot of the words I says, it'll come there's always an obstacle. Obstacles always stop something. Like, but it will go through. It's just going to take time and then, like, the same thing I said because COVID showed up it's just delaying, delaying, delaying, delaying, but I just kept telling her it'll come, it'll come, it'll come.

[Jennifer] And yeah. And it did and she was right. 

My life is wonderful. My work is going very well we're very busy at work and I’ve never had any issues with any of our customers. Most of my customers... I work in customer service so I speak directly to all of the customers for our company throughout all of the United States, Canada, Europe. And they've all been very accepting all of them know basically that I’ve come out. 

I had one of our customers one time send me an email and she referred to me as man in the email and I said, I was having a very bad day that day, and I basically replied back or said, thank you for the email and especially thank you for the ma'am I really needed that today. And she goes, well of course you need that! I have a transgender brother and I know what kind of crap they go through, and she goes, I am behind you 100%, and if anybody has any issues, send them my way! I’ll give them a throat punch for you. So that was wonderful. 

So all of our customers, all my customers that I deal with I’ve been very accepting. Life has been wonderful and it seems to be getting better all the time. I have family members that have been very supportive. I have a biological son from my first marriage, and I have a chosen son, who is transgender and he's a very big part of my life and um he is going to be part of our wedding party, so I have a lot of interesting people in my life that make it worth living and make me very happy to be in the community that I’m in. 

Probably the biggest dream, and everybody knows that talks to me, is to eventually build a gay commune on a big farm somewhere and have all of my friends come and live with us. But probably the most important dream to me is to grow older with this woman. We don't never say grow old because we don't want to grow old, we just want to get older. And just try to meet as many wonderful interesting people as I can. Hopefully to share my experience as a trans woman with other people to hopefully give them hope for the future. And to try and live as authentically as I can myself. And be out there. Hopefully as an example as to how wonderful being trans can be. 

I would probably want to remind myself in the future that, you are worthy of love. That you deserve the love that you're receiving. That you are a likeable person. That you are a lovable person. And that the love that you're receiving is because of the person that you are. And that you deserve to be happy, finally, in your life. You deserve this happiness. 

My future, I would say, is very bright. I’m waiting to become a grandmother. I’m trying to convince my two sons to get busy and to try and fulfill that. But other than that I’m... basically I’m at a place where I’m incredibly happy and I’m hoping that stays the same for the rest of my life. I’ve just recently had gender confirmation surgery. In fact just a month ago yesterday I had gender confirmation surgery. I am at a place where I am now comfortable with my body. I am very happy. I basically just want to grow old with this woman and I want to hopefully spread the love that I’ve been given by all these other people as far as I can spread it. So that is what I’m hoping for the future.

Always come from a place of love in your heart. Always think about the person first that you're speaking to because the words that you can say can really hurt people. And we need to make sure that when you talk to somebody, it's always from a place of love and not from a place of hurt. Just because you have certain beliefs doesn't mean that those beliefs have to be pushed on to other people. 

Trans people exist. We deserve to exist. We're not going to be erased and just because you have certain beliefs doesn't mean that your beliefs have to affect my life in any way shape or form. I’m just trying to exist, trying to be happy. I’m not going to push my values on you. I don't need your values to be pushed on to me. I have a right to exist. 

The best way that people could help me is just to be supportive of the trans community. I’ve had a lot of love and support but I know there's a lot of trans women and trans men out there and non-binary people that don't have the love and support of their family or their friends. In fact my trans son doesn't have the support of his mother and so these people need help. These people need support and so if you see somebody suffering try to be there for them. Try to be that person that they can go to and share their feelings with. And open up to them. Try to be there to support others because even if you have it good and easy not everybody's in that same boat. So try to be a supportive of your community as much as possible.

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