What follows is a transcript from Dimitria's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/eOBob6u_A88
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My name is Dimitria Sparrow. I go by she/her pronouns and I am currently 22. I live in Barrie Ontario Canada. I work in a corrugate factory and I work on one of the press machines there, so I spend most of my time there. Not at all having the opportunity to be, you know, glammed up like I want to, but it pays the bills and makes me happy, so...
The way I came to understand my identity, something I did not tell my family, for one thing I wasn't in a very good state when I transitioned to be able to like explain a lot of this stuff to them, because the truth is I didn't have a very feminine childhood. I didn't have a lot of gender expression until the time I was 19 when I transitioned. I mean I cross-dressed when I was 11, so there's kind of that going. The main sort of spurt of like where the gender thoughts sort of came in, the dysphoria and all that, was during puberty.
So in high school there was an art project and my idea for it was, it was having two twins in like one frame and so it was a male and female twin. And so my idea was like, okay I could possibly get maybe like a twin from like twins from like high school to do it. But then my brain is immediately going to maybe I could just fill in for this part. Maybe I could just do that, and so yeah, I got my stepmom to basically do drag on me. So I was about like 16 when that happened so there was that.
And also, I come from like a more creative background and when I was talking about like it these feelings kind of insert themselves in private places where people won't put two and two together, there is a certain character I wrote about that at first I was like oh this is just this beautiful character and she's like my one true love, but now that I look back I’m like that character is me! Like that is a b c d e f g it's like I predicted my personality throughout my childhood. Like the anti-social behavior, the loneliness, the kind of narcissism, I’m not gonna lie, and also like you kind of think like you're crazy and then you try to figure out like certain instances where you know what could have made me think like this. And so that was really weird.
And so like now that I look at it it's like okay I tried to put my personality, put my identity into this female character, and any story I write, it's like all the male characters are often like really boring. And it always ends up being like a mono-e-mono with like two women, so there was that too.
What kind of made me transition was, it's basically when the feelings can't be hidden anymore and they need to be expressed in some sort of better way, in some sort of healthier way. So for a while there it was like, you know, do I always feel this way? Is this something that I always want to be? That was a big question since I was like 15.
When I was 16, 17, I was actually like borderline authoritarian. Like I was a very right-wing young boy, and what happened was I bottled up a ton of emotions in my head because when you're very right leaning you tend to be very like; look after your own lane, don't think about it. It's like a lot of right-wing stuff is like toxic masculinity in a lot of ways, and a lot of family issues, a lot of gender identity issues were kind of bottled up and you don't really know who you are. And then, you know, when I broke out of that, when I broke down, all these emotions just came out.
I mean at that time I was a borderline like authoritarian like a fascist. Not like Nazi, but like fascist and that is a mindset where you look after your own lane, you don't think about anything, you just do what you're supposed to do no matter what the cost. And the costs for me we're bottling up a ton of emotions so there was a ton of that. I was actually a deep depression at the time. I was actually not financially secure. I was actually spending a lot more money than it should be. And yeah, I just had a lot of really bad habits. There were some drinking habits for a little bit. There were some eating habits, and anything concerning finance was really bad and I didn't talk to anybody. And you're kind of under this idea that like you can solve everything yourself.
Basically by the time I was 19 and I was able to have a glass of wine, beer, whatever, I basically got drunk a few times and every time that happened I was super emotional and I knew I was like I want to be a woman like so bad. And it ended up with like, I like bawled my eyes out after like every time I drank and at that point I was like okay something has to change, And yeah I gotta basically process this stuff. And it's like okay where can this identity manifest and it'll be healthy.
The first six months are probably the hardest and the thing you have to understand, in your first six months to like a year you're kind of like a big kid again. Because you're going through like an adolescence again it's almost like let me have the tea party I never got to have when I was five, and it's like kind of like puerile behavior, but also it's like then you know everyone is kind of like looking at you weird and then like society is like you know you're not good enough for us. And then you know, family stuff where you think everyone's accepting but it takes a lot longer actually for people to understand it and deal with it, Now that I mean is obviously very hard and takes a while to kind of come to grips with that and kind of build a thicker skin once again when you've gone through that second adolescence.
I started hormone therapy I suppose about six months in. I was on Spiro which dries you out, so then we moved to cyproterone and I started at estrogen I think in like the seventh month and yeah, I’ve been taking that ever since. It kind of depends on the person in terms of what their sort of journey is going to be. It's not the same for every single person.
For me I was very self-conscious about my voice so that was one thing I wanted to work on quite a lot in order to alleviate that particular dysphoria. And a lot of the thing was trying to figure out how to pass well and how to like you know, feel good in the gender identity you identify as. And for me it was learning about you know, makeup, learning about hair and skin care, and dressing well. And you just have to like pace yourself and not be too hard on yourself as well in terms of your appearance because it's... as much of a difficult time it can be, it's also a very rewarding time. It's new experiences. You're finally you know seeing the side of yourself for the first time so there's a lot of stuff to sort of deal with.
The difficulties I faced in my journey, I’m not gonna lie, I feel like I’d be kind of conceited in saying I’ve had it the worst, because I really haven't. Pretty much all of my family members are talking to me and I’m the more emotional one so like I’m more cut off others, so there is that. So I mean I’m actually very fortunate in that regard and I’m actually working full-time in a union so I think that's probably more rare for trans people, so I’m very fortunate in that regard. I would say the big difficulty for me is kind of coming to grips with, I guess it's just how people view you it can be very shocking and weird. Because I think it's kind of understandable to know that like if you're a straight white dude, you know, you're kind of doing okay, you know, it's not like you enter a room and someone's gonna poke fun at who you are. It's like you kind of gotta say something first, right? But now it's like when you become, you know, basically a minority, there are times where you walk in a room and already people have made assumptions about you. You didn't even have to talk about your opinion on something. So that can be very difficult.
And it's weird because one thing is we like to make sort of labels and sort of identify... put people in groups basically, and one of the most important things I learned was that transphobia doesn't know a face. It's not more a thing for men, that's definitely not true. It's not for you know older people, there are a lot of younger people who are transphobic. And there are people of different races. But all these people could have the exact opposite opinion. So it's very important to not make assumptions in your head when you see someone coming up to you and make assumptions on how they're going to feel about you. Because there are times where you'll make a little bit of an ass of yourself in public and yeah, like, just treat people how you want to be treated right? You know, don't make assumptions about people.
I think the big issue for me at least this is more of a... in my opinion what was really tough for me was finding employment, because I made some decisions in my life that led me from one point to another and wasn't the best decisions. And I found there was a long period where I wanted to go to a job that I was proud of and I could go, you know, I work here, I can make this amount of money and I can support myself. And for a while I was working retail part-time and I hated it. And it felt so humiliating to be honest, and then you have so many doubts about yourself like should I have done this should I have done that. And eventually I went to a corrugate factory as a temp and been working there ever since. And it has been unbelievably rewarding to be at a place where I don't have to deal with a whole lot of scrutiny. Everyone is really sweet and really nice. But what I will say is as sweet as everybody is, there is always a thought in my head that perhaps in my first year of trans transition, if I came to work there, would have been treated the same if they knew me before as male and then I came out in the middle of being employed there, which a lot of trans people have to deal with is really tough. And I think I did have an advantage there in a lot of ways I was very lucky and fortunate that I was kind of in the right place at the right time. This place was hiring and I became a little bit more passable to where I didn't have to deal with all of that drama that could have been there. So yeah, again, not saying I have the absolute worst experience, actually pretty fortunate, very thankful.
The problem with my expectation of coming out is a lot of naivete in that everyone is okay with it, everything is great. And the thing is again you go through that second adolescence where you're kind of just like on top of the world. You feel like no one can challenge you. You know, you are you and you're gonna show the world.
It's like that one time where I saw like this like pretty obviously like gay boy like dancing across the street when we were like at the stop lights. I’m like that's the first time this guy's come out. So it's like you're high on life. And then people start having problems with you and sometimes you experience very personal rejection. And you feel like when you're in that second adolescence when your hormones literally are going crazy, it's like a big stab in the back. So be aware of that that you got to be prepared for how people are gonna look at you and don't expect the worst of people but don't expect that everything is gonna go absolutely smoothly.
I live in Ontario, so I mean that's pretty good. One of the other things that was very tough for me to deal with, but I should have seen it coming, was the trans community can be a little bit difficult.
That word transgender. What does it mean to people? And you know, when you finally are with a community that can understand you and have a similar experience with you, you feel like you can just pour your life out to them and all the emotions that you've bent up inside for years to them. And on top of that if you're a trans woman it's kind of like the first time you feel like you can be in a group and like talk about your emotions, like fully, because you know when you're a boy you're kind of taught not to do that. And like you're not. You kind of just don't know how to do that. So there's all of that and then you start to find that some people have certain standards of what makes someone valid, what makes someone not valid. And you feel like you have to now validate your identity based on what the community is suggesting that you have to be, instead of you just plainly saying this is me and I am valid. One of the other issues is there's a lot of pre-rejection there's tons of sort of in-group embarrassment, sort of distancing yourself from someone who's a little more, you know, whatever, more cringy, a little bit and there are people who like to distance themselves from those people and it's just weird because it's like we're all the same you know and it's really weird and it creates like really toxic atmosphere. And it's all about like going after your own personal interests right? You know if you can distance yourself from someone who's a little a little crazy on that one end but it can up you and make you look good in front of everybody else then the selfish part of you is gonna go for it. But it's not good. It's not cool. And I just think it seems there's just a little bit more of that than I think people like to think. Like how many times have if you're trans have you heard like these particular types of queer or trans people are making us look bad and I just don't like that entire thing because I feel like queer should just be queer.
Tons of people have these like weird standards of what makes you like trans and what validates you and I honestly don't think the community kind of helps that, where it's kind of like you don't need to validate yourself because the group is going to validate you. And that can be very toxic because you don't know how to really validate yourself. And the problem is, you have to kind of figure out how to distance yourself from a lot of that, like the political sphere. Because you start to freak yourself out and you feel like you have to live up to some sort of standard, and try to validate your feelings. Like one of the feelings I sometimes discourage myself to have where I’m like oh I can't have these feelings; if I watch a movie with say like a daughter with like a father figure something like The Glass Castle for instance, or if you watch something like AI where it's like a mother-son relationship kind of throughout the movie, I’m gonna identify with the latter and the thing is it's weird because you'll find that you're like, okay I can't... I’m like... but that doesn't make sense. Like, but if I’m a girl then I should be sympathizing with like the girl character, but it could just be that's what my experience is, right? So those are instances of stuff where I’m not going to deny what I can relate to more.
I’m hoping that every time I go to bed that I wake up, I feel good in knowing that last night or yesterday I got you know just one step further in whatever thing I pursue. Planning financially for the future is like a really big thing for me so if I can do that, if I put a certain amount away every month, that I can feel good about that and I just don't want to be feeling like I’m going backwards or I’m wasting this time in my life so there it is. My dream for the future is to be healthy and to succeed and hopefully be at a point where I am kind of good at something and in this case like beauty wise so I’m looking to be really good at that.
Since I’m 22 and I’m a little bit of a young and I still got a little a little bit of angst in me, I’d say what really gets me out of bed in the morning is honestly just proving everyone I don't like wrong, that I can be good at something. So I mean I do a YouTube channel that helps trans women and cross-dressers present themselves and stuff like that and that is one of the projects that can help me like go like, I can be good at this thing. I’ve always wanted to be good at like a particular sort of skill because I mean blue collar jobs are great and I respect everyone in it, but the thing is it's not like something you could go to school for, right? So I mean if I can go to like a mini school in my head and like be good at like these things and be able to help people at these things, then that'd be really cool. And honestly, just going to bed knowing that like I didn't waste time because I don't want... everyone tells me like you know, 21, 22, it's like the best time of your life and stuff and I just want to make sure I don't screw it up.
It really helps at least in my experience that basically the outside matches the inside and that is like one of the big things for a lot of trans people that can cause a ton of mental and social anguish so I’m fairly happy with where I am I always want to see what I can do better. The most liberating thing about coming out is you're finally who you are you.
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