What follows is a transcript from Kaylee's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/T2X7WupmH8w
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My name's Kaylee. Kaylee Mae. My kids call me Mae. I'm almost 40 years young, so, you know, halfway through life, I go by she/her. I've been out for nine months, 10 months, and on HRT for nine months just the other day.
None of that was helping. And I thought back to grade 2. When I was told, you know, you can't hang out with the women and that. And I realized that there's a lot more going on there. And finally admitted to myself that, yeah, that's that's what I need. And the day I figured that out for myself, I haven't stopped smiling. It's been amazing.
When I started transitioning, it was pretty easy. I was surprised, actually. I went to my doctor and I told them and I was a little taken aback when they answered "You're Trans?" like their head went back.
Well, yeah. I mean, do I have to look a certain way or something. And she said no. OK. So they referred me to an ENDO an I did a blood test. I did one more blood test. And then I waited three weeks maybe and I started HRT. And I knew already in the last few years that's something I really wanted.
Voice training is probably my biggest fear. I can go bra shopping with my wife. I can go get my nails done. I can dress as nice as I like, but I'm still shy to try and do the voice training. I don't know why, but that's the hardest part for me.
In a way I was debating on if I should do this interview or not, because I hear so many stories of people that lose their lives. You know, they go through a very hard childhood, lots of medical issues. And I've been very fortunate to had almost none of that happen.
And I am sad for some people. But then some people talked to me and told me that you need to give others hope that we're together. We've been married 13 years and our relationship is stronger now than it was before. There so much I can relate to. I mean, and we fit the same clothes. So that's amazing.
Challenges in my life have not been too many I mean, I have an amazing wife who supports me, two beautiful kids that support me, and they learn about this in school. When I told them it was, one of the hardest things was to tell my family and I thought my kids, I would have to explain a bunch, and as soon as I had told they said, Oh, well, dad, you're transgender then. I read about this in school, and they're only 12 and 13 years old, and I was really surprised that they're teaching that, and it made it a little bit easier for me to explain to them. So it was really nice that the teachers had already gone through some of that,
At this point, things with my wife are amazing. It started. Well, I mean, just a given. It started pretty strange. I didn't know how it was going to go. In the past, we had experimented with a few other women. I wanted to make sure that things would be OK. I couldn't have done it without her. I don't think I would have. She's my rock, my stone, my whole life. So if the support wasn't there, I don't know that I could have done this. And now things are just we cuddle on the couch. For me and her, it's the greatest night we can have. So it's nice to be able to do those small things. Holding hands is just so different now, stuff like that. But the little things mean a whole bunch.
So if I had to give some advice to somebody that's married or in a situation sort of like me? I would say not to go too quick with things. I mean, even if you're going to medically transition, especially, it's a long process. It's years and years. And if you can, like, I really didn't want to scare Kassandra off at all.
It would have really hurt. There's no - there's no need to rush. It's a very long process. So just let it do its time. And I think that that's the best chance to keep your relationship going. And even if you just end up best friends, just if you do things too quick, I think that it could really scare someone off or or catch them off guard in a way that they may not bounce back from.
Thinking back about it, when I was eight or nine years old and I was learning to break hair and I was sitting with the girls in the class and my teacher pulled me aside and one little comment stuck with me for 30 something years, that you can't do that. You're a boy. You need to be over here. And it was just on the backburner for the next long, long time. And finally, I did something. And I mean, I feel so good. I've never felt this good in my life.
I see so many other trans people in a lot of the the discords that I'm in. And the one thing that people can't hide is your eyes. Even as mad or upset as you are, their eyes get so big and so happy. And you see the difference in these changes that people go through and the eyes tell the story. I think right there alone.
I love so many things about, you know, I'm very, very visibly trans. I go out, and I don't try to, you know, where I blend in. I just walk around and I talk to everyone. I really like doing makeup. I haven't had any lessons yet. So it's kind of like a crapshoot figuring it out. Not easy. Same as clothes. I love to go shopping. And I think that Value Village and stores like consignment shops are a trans person's best friend.
Actually I went to one and it was really neat because I seen a group of six or seven trans women together. And during COVID, that was my only real life... So it was really nice to see that. And yeah, I love shopping. Anything with the face I love to do. I just everything that I've missed out on, I'm starting my hair is getting a little bit longer so I'm able to do a couple of things with it. Everything. I'm just so happy. There's so many things that make me happy about being transgender and more than I thought.
We're superintendents, we've been superintendence for about 12 years, almost since the time we've been together, and it's really nice.
I've been... through the whole thing I've been working and I get to see a lot of residents. So I've done things slowly. I didn't want to scare anybody or myself, for that matter. I started, you know, just wearing glitter, nail polish and mascara and small things like that. And residents started noticing. But I found that nobody wanted to ask. They just kind of kept being themselves very nice. Most people, having great.
Work or is super supportive with me. Nothing's really changed at work. In fact, I find people are nicer. I don't know why, but it just probably because I'm being me who I'm supposed to be. So I think it's a really nice thing to have a very supportive company and coworkers. That's great.
There's a few challenges. The one biggest one, and it didn't bother me for the longest time was, my dead name was I was fine with that. And just the last little bit, it's been hard because there's some people who you've known for a long time and they're not ready to call me that name, and it's hard sometimes, I mean, everything everywhere now is Kaylee. there's no other person here. So it's just reminding them, you know, just a gentle reminder, I don't get offended very easy at all. And I'm a very easygoing person. That's probably the biggest hardship for me.
There's a few people too that kind of maybe they're not as friendly with me anymore, but they don't say anything. We'll take it. And that's fine. They do their own thing and I'm OK. Not everybody can like everybody. And I think the world's going to like that. It's meant to have some people who like me, some people who love me, and some people who prefer not to talk to me. And that's OK.
In the future... I love office work. I always have. And I also love to gossip. So I would like to get out of superintendent and go work in a nice office setting where I can dress super nice, not have a uniform every day and gossip and just.
Hang out with more, more of a group of people versus just doing a random work order like some of the things at work, losing a lot of muscle, I have to do huge compacter garbage, things that are not as easy to pull anymore. I have to shovel snow in the winter for a massive property, not just in a driveway. So a lot of that stuff gets harder. And I would like to be in an office setting again where I feel super comfy and happy.
I just want to say that I love my wife more than anything in the world. My kids come very, very close second. She is the most important thing for me.
[Cassandra] I'm Cassandra. I'm Kaylee's spouse. I guess I'm supposed to call her now.
We've been married for. Eleven years and together for 13. So it's been really good.
[Kaylee] So one big thing is, is sex with my wife has gone. A lot better, it's not every day, twice a day thing, it's once, once a week maybe, but it's so much better and it's brought us closer.
And I think that's really important to connect like that. It's more meaningful and more time involved. It's really, really nice. And along the lines of that, that's kind of how I made sure that she would be OK with me coming out.
We did experiment with a couple of women. To see if that's something that I guess that I wanted to see. She's a very, very quiet reserved woman, and I wasn't sure if that's something that she would be OK with. And she's definitely OK with that. So I, yeah, I identify as a lesbian. And if she wasn't into women, then I couldn't.
[Cassandra] Well, first, it was pretty weird, I thought, because we used to always joke with me that you wanted to do everything, if he could ever be a girl, he'd want to be a girl.
I mean, it just. It was a shock to him when he decided he was going to. And our relationships been 100 percent better than we thought it would be. I'm fine for 100 percent, so.
After being married for so many years, if you really love the person, you should stay with them. If you don't, then there's no point in staying with that person., Be yourselves. And I'm happy for all of the people that are transgendered or trying to change themselves for the better.
[Kaylee] We have two beautiful kids. They're amazing kids.
Everybody says that about their own kids, I guess. But they really are special. Before I bring them in, I just want to say one thing real fast. They got no Christmas gifts. They saved their money. They got a lot of money. They saved their money till just the other day they randomly found their, PS5 in a store. They lucked out. So they're so happy. They are very patient boys. That kind of just gives a little bit about them. But yeah, I really like if I could introduce our boys to everybody, if that's OK.
Here, come in front here guys.
[Jaden] Hello
[Cassandra] Come sit.
[Jaden] Fine
[Kaylee] This is my eldest, Jaden. Look in the camera here. He is 13 years old
[Jaden] No, 12
[Kaylee] ...going to be 13.
And this one is Zander. Say hi.
[Zander] Hi. I'm going to be 12.
[Kaylee] They were born less than a year apart. The Irish twins, they call it.
[Jaden] No, it was three hundred and seven days.
[Kaylee] So 16 days less than, err, no six days less than a year.
[Zander] No.
[Kaylee] Yeah.
[Zander] 365 days in a year.
[Kaylee] Yeah, less. And okay,, so they've got some questions maybe for you.
[Zander] What? I don't... Hi.
[Kaylee] Excuse the COVID cuts. We haven't made it to the hairdresser yet, so they're pretty good shag. Do you like being a teenager?
[Jaden] Yeah, I guess.
[Kaylee] Yeah. How about you Zander
[Jaden] I'm not one yet
[Kaylee] Are you looking forward to it? Make sure you talk here.
[Zander] Uh... Games. I like the games.,
[Kaylee] Video games and video games. So we went to, Jaden I'd like you to show them this picture. You hold it up close, OK? Zander, tell them where we went.
[Zander] We went to Niagara Falls. To this picture place and they dressed us up and all that.
[Kaylee] They dressed as a what?
[Zander] The wild west.
[Kaylee] Yeah, the Wild West. And what do you guys call me now? What's my name?
[Jaden] Mae. [Zander] Mae.
[Kaylee] So they call me Mae. I'm Kaylee Mae. So I thought Mae would be nice. I could never steal her as as mom and dad would be a little strange. Some places I go so Mae seem to fit and they're doing very good. Especially he reminds his older brother when he slips up and, "it's Mae, it's Mae!"
[Jaden] I don't really care that often. Because he's still him I guess you could say.
[Zander] Yeah, same, I don't really care.
[Kaylee] In the end of it. I think that we're a super easygoing family. Very, very straightforward. Not a care in the world, really. Just I try to raise my kids how we were both raised, very happy and easygoing. You know, if something's not right, don't hang around there. There's no need to get upset about stuff. Just move on and. Yeah.
So I think that most of the people in the world just think they need to live their lives and everybody's different. So there's no need to charge anybody. It takes more effort and more time from them to go out of the way to maybe save some hurtful things. And it's much easier to just live your life, smile, be happy every day. You never know, you may not wake up tomorrow. And I'm happy when people ask me, how is your day? I say, well, I woke up today. So that's the best start of the day. I woke up and I go to bed - I'm happy going to bed. Anything else that happens, I look at it as positive as I can, because you only get one life. You're only here for a very, very quick second. And the grand scheme of time. So you just live it. Smile. Treat everybody like like you would treat your mom or your dad or your brother or your best friend or even your dog.
I mean, just treat everybody the same and smile. And it really rubs off on other people. You do one small thing and you may not get it back from them. But the butterfly effect kind of goes down the line and they think of it as well.
And, don't dress your age, dress how you feel. You can't honestly dress how you feel because I dress - I'm sorry if I dress like really provocative or slutty, I don't know which is a good word to use.
And I feel like I'm a teenager who should be dressed like I can't help but just dress how you feel. Don't let anyone tell you you can't wear that, you're 40 years old, or, Yeah. At the end of the day, one thing that's really important for me is a community to have, if you can find a community and most of it, especially with COVID right now, is online. But there's some really nice LGBTQ and especially just transgender servers.
I'm in a few of them, and it's great to be able to... people have their stories, their medical information. They they have big pride balls, once a month, stuff like that, where you can all just get together and talk or feel like a part of a family there. And there's lots of people who have no one in their lives. And I couldn't imagine going through this without having some kind of contact. So find a group of people or a person or a pet or even a plant. Anything that's alive that can listen to you, but they don't even have to talk back to you. It's just something that you can talk to. And I think that that could help a lot and and prevent a lot of sadness and maybe questions. Yeah. That's the kind of person I am just always happy. I don't think I've stopped smiling for the last nine months. Every day. I just you know, it feels so good to smile now and I can't help it. It's just who I am.
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