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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Meet Kermmitt (He/Him)

What follows is a transcript from Kermmitt's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/EF1kilW-Bck

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Hello, my name is Kermit Crowley. I am a 19 year old, disabled transman. 

My identity hasn't changed too much over the years. I've always identified as masculine in some way. Early days, I need more towards gender fluid and then I was non-binary masculine for a while and now I'm just straight binary trans man. Discovering it was a process. The world has always felt off to me in some way. It was very tricky to put my finger on what was wrong and what was going on. 

I didn't really understand it. And then puberty hit and things started spiraling and getting a lot worse and harder to deal with and I didn't know why I felt the way I did but I did and it was so strong and then I started discovering characters in the media that were similar to me. Characters who were endogenous, they didn't particularly care what people read them as gender-wise and were often mistaken for, or intentionally dressed as masculine in some way shape or form, or were read as masculine in some way shape or form. And I thought that's what I want to be, that's who I can identify with, this makes sense to me, this is what's most comfortable for me this is what I want out of my life experience. 

And I didn't really understand it, and then I just by chance started stumbling upon labels like transgendered non-binary things like that and it didn't quite click at first. I spent a good amount of time just sitting there like I want to be that so badly. I want it more than anything else but I'm not that and I don't understand what's wrong and what's going on and I just want to be this. And then finally one day, I was just sitting there and it just kind of clicked and place, like if I want it so bad that probably means that I am in it. There's not really any other qualifiers, that's just what it is is basically. And from there everything clicked into place, everything maybe sense, everything just kind of snapped and all of a sudden I just had this understanding of myself that I had never had before and it felt amazing. 

Before I came out was - it was an odd time. I wasn't really present in the world and in my life. I was just kind of floating by doing whatever I was told basically. I just wasn't really there or connected with life, the world around me. Then when puberty hit I started going down a really bad depression spiral. I was so stressed all the time and I didn't understand what was happening to me or why, even though I knew some of the science behind it. I still couldn't wrap my head around why it was happening to me specifically and why it felt so wrong. 

Coming out has been one hell of a journey, I came out very, very soon after I figured it out myself, and it was very sudden for the people around me. Nobody really fully wanted to accept it or understand it at first except for my oldest sibling who has been amazing throughout all of these years and is now out of the closet and this non-binary themselves, but everybody else was very confused and they thought I was confused and I had a lot of people who straight up thought that I was out of my mind insane. They didn't want to listen to me. They didn't want to take me seriously in any way. There were some people I had to come out to at least five times to get any modicum of respect or just anything other than being misgendered by the pronouns that were assigned at birth.

Coming out has given me an understanding of myself but is completely invaluable to me. I struggle a lot with something called alexithymia where you struggle to know what your own emotions are and how to communicate them with other people. 

But coming out has really given me a connection to my own emotions, my own psychology that I never would have had otherwise. I just wasn't present enough to be there to figure it out. And it's given me names for problems that I never would have been able to pinpoint before, like dysphoria, things like that. And if it's given me an understanding of what medical treatment I need in order to actually combat my depression and anxiety issues and live my life the best that I can. 

My life has a lot of ups and downs and I still have a lot of struggles today especially transition wise, trying to get the medical care I need. People don't really talk about it here, but the medical transphobia and ableism here is absolutely insane sometimes. I have had actual psychiatrists who were - their beliefs and ideologies were that I should not exist basically. And, Having dealt with those people they have basically made things completely inaccessible to me in devastating ways. But it's also - I have a community now and I have people who care about me and people who understand I have friends who know what it's like, I have family members who love me. I have so many people now and I'm able to be myself and I'm able to live my life and be present. 

Before I came out. I didn't really know what my life was going to be like but I had a very hard time picturing myself being able to live past a certain age. Whether it was because my life circumstances didn't seem like I would make it there or because I didn't want to make it there. But now I am hopeful. I'm really hopeful for my future. I've always been a little bit of a pessimist in some ways, but I think nowadays I have possibly the brightest outlook on what my future can be I've ever had in my entire life. 

I think my biggest dreams are of course transitioning but other than that I would say I want to go to acting school. I want to learn to be an actor and I want to be able to act on stage and possibly in front of the screen and I want to - I want to live with, I want to move in with the people who mean the most to me. 

I face quite a few issues. I still struggle with depression related to dysphoria and accessing the transition care that I need is very very difficult for me. I have to find people who will overwrite what previous medical professionals have said so that I am able to access transitional care that I may need. And I have some disability issues that also affect exactly what kind of transitional care that I am able to receive. 

I have a kind of a few comorbid ones. The biggest one is that I am autistic and with that means I have sensory issues. I have difficulty reading social cues and communicating in general but I also struggle with alexithymia, which makes figuring myself out and communicating that to the world very difficult paths. I also have some physical issues specifically with my skeleton. I have some skeletal issues. My bones don't like to stay in the right place. Specifically my hips and I have some issues with my skull that make it hard for, first of all everything to stay connected the way it's supposed to, but also for things like oxygen and blood circulation to get wherever they're supposed to be. 

One of the biggest issues that I've struggled with is my hypersensitivities. I am hypersensitive to pain and that means that certain medical treatments are not as accessible to me as they would be for other people such as injections, needles; I cannot do those at all. So I rely on alternatives to those that are often a lot more expensive and harder to get a hold of. 

Buckle up, there's a lot coming. Those 10 years are going to be rough as hell and you're going to lose a lot and you're going to have to fight in order to keep a lot but you're also going to gain the most precious things in the entire world to you and that's going to be worth every single thing in the world. 

I would remind myself. How much and how hard we have fought for everything in our life, even if people don't think we have, we have fought and we have fought hard and long for everything in our life. And don't forget that. Don't forget that other people are still fighting and don't forget to be kind to those people as much as you can, still being healthy to yourself, but also just celebrate. Celebrate your life how far you've come. Celebrate all the victories in your life. 

Well what kind of guides me in life is; one, the people that I love and that I am closest to who offer me support and love and care and just happiness, fun. Those people mean the world to me, but also just, the world is imperfect and it will never be perfect. Perfect is a myth. It's unattainable by anybody and a lot of people forget that, and forget that perfection is non-existent and it never will exist but that doesn't mean that everything is bad or that life isn't worth living or things like that. 

Some of the most beautiful things in the entire universe are beautiful because of their imperfection. And it's worth it just to see what those are and what life brings. 

People can help by listening when people talk about this stuff. Don't shy away from it, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it doesn't make sense to you. Just listen and take people seriously and respect them above all else. If you cannot offer anything, offer respect as a bare minimum. 

Make sure that you are learning as much as you can about the issues that people like myself and people in the trans community and other minority communities face. Learn about those issues and fight for us. Even if you don't belong to a minority group yourself, fight for us. We are vulnerable and we need the support. People all over the world are suffering and struggling because people don't understand and don't take the time to understand properly. There's a lot of lies and misinformation out there of this kind of thing and a lot of people are just trying to make other people angry and scared and afraid but we are not scary we just want to live.

Don't be afraid of weirdness, don't be afraid of things out of the ordinary, embrace the uniqueness of the world around you and all that it offers you in return, embrace it and learn about it curiosity is one of humanity's greatest strengths. 

You don't have to be scared of what that might bring and what that might reveal.

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Meet Kelly (she/her)

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

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Hi, I’m Kelly. 

I’m part of the Trans Canada project, and this is my story.

I’m not the kind of girl that wants to be on the shiny side of the camera.

I was born prince albert Saskatchewan way out west, and north, and a while ago. Not telling how long ago; it's a girl's secret!

I’ve kind of known that I was not really a boy since I was about four or five. I didn't have the vocabulary to describe it. I had no idea what it was I just felt wrong. I didn't feel like I fit in.

I’m not really sure how to describe it. It wasn't until puberty that I really noticed I was developing in a way that really wasn't what I was expecting and I kind of expected to grow up to be a girl and I didn't. And honestly, I was devastated. High school was a bit of a blur I kind of forgot and kind of dozed my way through high school. I could have done substantially better, but I was quite upset with my lot in life.

I had a great childhood, great parents, a brother who still adores me, and loves me, and counts me as his sister now, which is absolutely precious to me. He's a wonderful human being, and my parents are actually coming around. I didn't go through a really hyper masculine phase like some people do but I did find a girl that I connected with really well, and we got married and we had six children (one at a time) and I loved being a parent. I really, really wanted to be the mom. I really wanted to carry those kids inside me, and I was jealous of my wife and a little jealous of the daughters that we had.

Again, for the longest time I wished I was a girl, prayed that I was gonna be a girl, went to bed crying and praying that I would be you know instantly a girl, the next morning everything would be fixed. I was miserable but I didn't have a bad childhood and I didn't have a bad life. I had a decent career. I had a great family, had a great wife. I had great parents. Like I said, my brother was awesome. My in-laws were great. I had some really good friends that I made at church and at work that have stuck with me to this day, a long, long time later, but I had this horrible secret in the back of my head and it eventually started gnawing away in a way that made it more and more difficult over time to function. It was stealing bandwidth. It was stealing space, processing power, time. It was consuming more time, until I got so consumed with it and so upset with it that I really lost track of everything else in reality and I wasn't a good parent. I wasn't present. I was so consumed by this I ultimately tried to commit suicide. It scared me. It kind of woke me up.

This was 2008, and I sought help.

I went to my doctor and told him that I was suicidal, and he prescribed anti-depressants and we talked to a psychiatrist. I started talking about getting involved with a counselor of some sort to talk about it, but I never told anybody I was trans.

After doing some research on the internet I discovered that there was such a thing as transgender and it blew me away, because that was me. I didn't know what it was before. I had no language for it. I just knew that I should have been a girl. I didn't know there was such a thing as transgender and there was a way out, but it didn't feel like there was a way out for me.

I eventually went to see a specialist, a gender therapist, and we talked for months and they concluded yes, I am indeed transgender. I do indeed suffer from gender dysphoria and there was actually a way of treating it in a way that would be positive for me in the future, with hormones. I suppressed that for a number of years and the depression got worse not better. I tried various different types of therapy, but I never told any of the medical professionals in my life that I was transgender. I didn't think it was possible for me to come out, for me to transition.

There are stories of all kinds of transgender women living wonderful lives and having come out and having achieved what I never thought was possible for me. I eventually, after a lot of soul searching and a couple of other brushes with suicidal thoughts, came out to my mother, who hugged me and said welcome to womanhood. And yet I was still not going to do anything about it. I told her that I came out to my wife and she said that explained so much. I’m glad you told me. And I promised her that I wouldn't do anything, and we stayed married three years after that.

Our marriage wasn't doing particularly well at that point and a lot of it had to do with my depression and my inability to function well as a parent and as a marriage partner. My transness was consuming so much of my mental bandwidth. There wasn't enough left over for all the other things I had to do as a parent and as a marriage partner, as a friend, as a sibling, as a child of my parents. I let a lot of people down, including myself.

I finally told my doctor that I was transgender, and he said thank you for trusting me with that. I still wasn't going to do anything about it. I talked to my endocrinologist about it, who had discovered my cancer and helped me get past my thyroid cancer, and she basically said no, I will not prescribe hormones for you, I don't treat people like you. I was devastated. I actually wasn't even asking for hormones. I just wanted to tell her that I was transgender.

It wasn't until my wife and I separated and I moved in with my parents that I really got serious help with a psychologist, and got into some intense therapy to deal with the depression and my psychology with my psychiatrist dealing with the medication and me being away from the toxic environment at home and my kids being away from me who was being toxic at the time as well.

I was able to start healing I wouldn't have been able to do that at home. My wife started healing as well, from the relationship that we had that wasn't good for us. I lived with my parents for two years and I finally told my parents that I was trans and that I wanted to do something about it, which is different from what I said four or five years before when I talked to my mom the first time. I finally found the courage to talk to my psychologist about being trans and then finding a transgender therapist that I could talk to about gender-specific items, things, and found a doctor that was specializing in transgender patients and hormone therapy and an endocrinologist that actually supported that.

Ultimately in December of 2020 I moved to my own apartment back here, near my kids and my wife. My wife and I got legally separated. We dealt with that and very shortly after, within a week or so of moving into my own place, I transitioned fully, full time. I ripped the band-aid off. There was no reason to wait. There was no reason to hold back. I was absolutely desperate to be myself. I was holding back, and holding back, and it was painful, and it was destructive, and I finally had the courage and the opportunity to do it, and when I came out to my brother, he basically said okay so you're my sister.

I told my wife that I was going to transition, and she was actually supportive. I told my kids and they said “okay”. So I told a number of friends that were quite supportive and I told my clients and one of them basically said “I don't really care what you wear. I just hire you to solve problems”. So I was in a position where I could transition and I did and I did aggressively and completely and after being on anti-antidepressants for so many years, and they helped regulate my mood; they helped soften the roller coaster - emotional rollercoaster I was on.

The anti-androgens really calmed me down. They so totally got rid of - the only way I could describe it is a kind of an angry little buzz in the back of my head that I never knew was there until it was gone - and the blessed peace that came from that! Oh, I do not miss testosterone at all! The estrogen took a little longer to do stuff.

I live almost daily in a state of joy. I don't remember ever being joyful before. Happy, certainly. Content, absolutely. And you know … but actual joy? I didn't know that was possible! I didn't know that was a thing, and to feel so completely myself for the first time in my life, I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't know I could have that. I hated what I looked like. I couldn't stand looking in the mirror my entire life. I didn't take care of my appearance. I didn't look in the mirror. I did not want to have anything to do myself with myself.

I didn't really know why. I never really was able to put my finger on it. I didn't have the vocabulary to describe it until I found out that I was trans, and even then, I was just unhappy with who I turned out to be. Now I wake up in the morning, my hair is all frizzled, I have no makeup on, and I look like crap, and I go look in the mirror, and I smile! It makes me happy. I never had that before my entire life.

I get up early in the morning now. My brother said, “I’m more surprised that you get up in the morning early than I am that you're a girl”. I used to stay up till three four o'clock in the morning and then sleep until two in the afternoon I was completely useless around the house. I was losing business. I was losing friends. I was losing my family. I was so depressed I couldn't function. Now I get up early in the morning, put on some music, dance, and then communicate with a bunch of people - network with a bunch of people. I was such an introvert before. Now I’m joining women's groups and networking with people for business and for pleasure, just to meet people. Just to be part of something. I’m happy with myself. I’m actually happy, and I can say that and it's true. I’m content with myself and I find joy in life. Not many people get to say that.

And I’m lucky that I survived my depression long enough to be able to get here. I have a future. I actually have a future now.

I wish I’d done it earlier. But I didn't. But I’m so glad that I transitioned, because for me the alternative… the alternative was not being around at all.

This is so much better.

This is my life. This is my story.

And I smile now. I’m happy with myself. I’m happy with my friends. I’m happy with my family. I’m happy with me.

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Meet Jue Meili

What follows is a transcript from Jue Meili's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/iFGzssgou9c

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Hi, my name is Jue Meili. 

I am glad to say I'm 73 years old next month and I enjoy my old age and I'm very healthy, lean and fit. I'm very conscious of being fit and I've been doing exercises throughout my whole life to be able to do that to enjoy my life and I keep a trim figure so that I can feel good as a woman also when I transition. 

I think it's just that I want to be my true self. Because this was hidden in me since my early childhood and had been repressed, suppressed, and so much pressure about hiding that I want everybody to see that I am a true female inside and out. 

I am semi-retired. I still do a little bit of work for my real estate clients, but I try to enjoy more life with my grandsons and video chat with them everyday. Before COVID, I used to enjoy a lot of badminton and ballroom dancing. I used to play badminton five times a week, ballroom dancing twice a week. 

I enjoy dressing up as a beautiful old woman in the evening at home. I put on only lipstick and no other makeup. At five feet, eight and 138 pounds, I can wear size six to size eight women clothing and size nine to ten women's shoes. 

Some background for myself. 

I was born and raised in Hong Kong. I came from an exceedingly poor family. When I was in grade two, I did not have any food for two days and I fainted at the school gates. The kind nuns took me into the kitchen and gave me milk and cookies. Ever since that time. I've learned to appreciate and not waste any food at all. 

About my transitioning journey. I have always known about my yearnings to become a beautiful female, ever since my early childhood days. For example, when no one was home, I would wear my aunt’s strapped sandals and my mom's intimates, nylons and heels. 

I even wore her bra under my clothes to go to church on Sunday to pray to become a woman. Because of the ultra conservative society of the 50's, 60s and 70s and peer pressures from family friends and work, I was hidden in the closet for over six decades. I got married in 1971, immigrated to Canada in 74 with my ex-wife and two children and added one more born in Canada. 

During my marriage. I secretly accumulated high heel pumps and wore my ex-wives torn stockings under my pajamas, together with high heels under the blanket for sleeping at night. After 20 years or so of marriage my ex-wife and I separated in the early nineties and eventually got divorced. I got together with my girlfriend after my separation from my ex-wife. We were so happy together. I admired her sexy body and wished I could be more like her. She often wore sexy clothes and heels to please me. I love to wear my high heels to sleep and also sometimes when we make love. I brought along her open heel sandals whenever we traveled and wore them to sleep at night. 

About my coming out

My girlfriend and I loved dancing and had been going to ballroom dancing for over 20 years. At the Halloween masquerade balls in 2018, and 2019. I dressed up as a beautiful old woman with the help of my daughter who used to work in a beauty salon. She helped me with professional makeup and hairstyle. I was one of the most beautiful women there and won third prize in the 2019 masquerade competition. This gave me the courage to start going out in public as a female. It was an encouragement for me to embark on my transitioning. 

Then I had eye-bags removal surgery in 2019. Started using eye and face moisturizing creams, early morning and at night. I went for laser and electrolysis treatments to remove body and facial lip hair. Then I started growing my hair long as well. 

During COVID lock down last year in 2020, I said to myself it was now or never. I was already 72 years old and asked myself how many more years do I have left? 10 to 15, more if I'm lucky. I decided to come out. I gathered all my courage, sat down and wrote for hours on end, and after several edits I sent an email to my girlfriend, my children, their families, my sister and her families to tell them I wanted to become a woman. 

It was as if a ton of pressure had been lifted off my shoulder when I came out. Before there was so much pressure and hiding. I was completely relieved. And I could go forward from that moment on. 

Then after several blood, cardio, blood pressure and ultrasound tests, I started on hormone replacement therapy, Testosterone blocker in January and estrogen patch in March 2021. I was in heaven. 

I finally came out of hiding in my closet, which has since become my huge wardrobe of women clothing. I could now live life 24/7 as a beautiful old woman. 

I applied for a name change to Jue Meili, meaning “pearl beautiful”. It takes decades for a natural pearl to grow in the shell before it is harvested for the whole world to admire its beauty. This is how I see myself; cooped up in a shelf for six decades before blossoming and finally coming out. After receiving my Ontario name certificate, I started notifying everybody about my becoming a transgender woman and about my new name. I received mostly positive replies and encouragement. 

The challenges I faced. 

Sadly my girlfriend of 27 years left me after I came out because she comes from the conservative Chinese culture and could not see herself in the lesbian relationship. I lost my dance partner of over 20 years. We had practiced to perfection so many dance steps that it would be impossible and time consuming for me to practice these same steps with new women dance partners. 

Then I had difficulty finding a doctor who treated transgender people. They were all booked full and not accepting any new patients. I did not realize that Toronto had such a large population of transgender people. Eventually after much searching and several weeks of interview, I found a doctor at Sherborn Health Center. Also, I could not find support groups in Toronto. Later I found two in the York Region, then it became easier and now I have joined six support groups. Two in York Region, two in Toronto, and two from the States. We have weekly meetings about two to five times a week. I enjoy these meetings and kind of treat them as personal therapy for myself. 

Talking about the joys and highs of being a transgender woman. 

After coming out in the summer of 2020. I have lived my life 24/7 as a woman. I love being a woman. When I go for my afternoon power jog and walk, dressed in my female athletic wear, I receive compliments all the time from people passing by. I love dressing up as a beautiful old woman and have even started doing this before my coming out. Ever since the Halloween masquerade balls which must have been towards the end of 2019.

I make 10 goals on the first day of each lunar month and I read them out loud to myself every morning. So I kind of made up a schedule for myself already, a daily activity schedule. One of the facilitators of the meeting asked us, “what do you do to feel good?” And I say “when I wake up in the morning, I would massage my scalp while sitting on the toilet, then I would brush the kinks out of my hair and tie them up in a ponytail in preparation for my early morning stretching and power exercises.” I have been doing the same stretching exercises since my junior school days, the same set of exercises plus I added other power exercises as well. 

So I look forward to my early morning exercises, and since January of 2021. I started on power walks, then I blended jogs into my power walks and every afternoon I go for my three kilometer jog and power walks, and I have lost most of the weight I gained during COVID from March of 2020 to December. I think I must have gained over 8 pounds at the time. I've lost most of it by now, and I hope to be my normal weight by the end of summer. I do pretty well in my jog and power walk. I time myself and I have reduced the time. In January it took me about 28 to 29 minutes and now my fastest record is 23 minutes for 3 kilometers, which is awesome. 

Then I also enjoy video whatsapp calls from my three year old and five year old grandsons every day. I look forward to that, so these are the things that keep me active for most of the day, which I really enjoy. 

I don't have that many more years to live, 10 to 20 years maybe, but I really enjoy my life as a whole anyway, every single day. When I wake up in the morning, I wake up with thankfulness and glad to be still above ground. I just look forward to enjoying life with my grandchildren and after COVID, hopefully I can hug my family and my grandson's again.

My old classmates from Hong Kong; we planned for our reunion last year, but because of COVID, it never happened, so hopefully this will happen maybe by end of this year or sometime next year then we have a reunion from our class of 1965, our high school class. 

I love to dress up as a woman so when the things are opened again and the party places reopen again, I will enjoy going to dinner and dancing, with not just new future dance partners, but with my dance students as well. I have been teaching ballroom dancing for the last two years at the Thornhill Community Center and they pay me 68% of dance proceeds and I use this to buy a money order to give to a charity to pay this forward and make this a better world for everyone. So dancing is a big part of my life. 

When I have my final bottom surgery, I want to see if I can apply to become a senior model. Because I think that will be a part of me that I will enjoy tremendously. I am not interested in men. I hope to find women or transgender women as dance partners not necessarily for a relationship, but to practice dance steps with and to go with me to ballroom dancing. Dancing works wonders for seniors. I will continue dancing until the day I die. 

After getting my legal IDs changed to female. I will be able to play as a woman in senior badminton competitions. I want to continue playing badminton until my mid 80s or early 90s. 

I have learned to love myself and therefore I am confident I will eventually find a new life partner. 

Thinking about any advice I would give to my younger self before my transitioning; Looking back at the ultra conservative society in the last 60 years. I felt it was not the right time to come out earlier. With so much peer pressure from family, friends, and career, it was also not socially or financially feasible at that time. 

However, I still have good memories of my past life. Which will always be a part of me. And my evolving. I have learned a lot from that period which can now help me carry through my continuous transitioning. 

I love being a woman. 

Okay, thank you.

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Meet Ruschelle

What follows is a transcript from Ruschelle's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/c7ImhZEAGoA
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Hi, I am Ruschelle. 

I'm transitioning. I'm 57 years old, and I started about 17 months ago. 

I identify as a female transgendered woman. I responded to her and she, and always have been that in my mind. I'm just making my body equal to that now. I always knew I was in the wrong body, but I only came to the decision [to transition] recently, and I've only become happy recently.

MY STORY

I generally had a happy childhood. Just like any other childhood. I knew I wasn't like other boys, but it didn't seem to matter. When I reached twelve, or thirteen, oh my god. Things just got out of hand. Maturing. Into a man; I just couldn't handle it. 

I reached high school, and people were pairing off and they were going drinking and going to the park and partying and I had never heard of this marijuana. I went deep into that because I was very uncomfortable around girls. I mean, I didn't really have any idea what I was maybe gay or something else. I just knew that I was just...  it just wasn't easy for me. 

I mean, it wasn't easy for other friends too, so I thought I was relatively normal but I mean, time went by and it just never got easier. I just got drunker and drunker. 

I would be the guy who was always really drunk at the party and this was a party of teenagers that were really drunk. And then I started doing LSD. That would really cover it. No one expected you to speak too much when you are on LSD. So I did over 200 years of LSD between 13 and, I guess, 20-21. Yeah. I just sort of blocked out my whole teenagehood. In high school I was just a stoner. 

I had another really good friend who was, I think he was maybe a closeted homosexual in high school we got along very well and we were very very popular for funny guys and we were always smoking joints and so we we stuck together quite a bit then we went together into hospitality management and we got jobs in the hospitality fields as managers in our twenties. And that was the eighties and I still had no idea what was going on with me. I just assumed I was gay then, and I couldn't deal with it. 

In my late 20s, I'd met a girl. And I fell in love with her and I fell really quick. Before we had made love, when we did try to make love, I ended up telling her about myself and she said “See you later. I'm not gonna be doing that.” If I wanted to go by myself, it would always be about. You know women's clothing or women’s underwear, or what I’d look like with pretty hair, and  I just thought I was like, (what do you call it?) a fetishist, you know, I'm just a weirdo, so I wouldn't talk to anybody about it. I just kept it quiet and I did it. Oh it just made my stomach rumble. Huh, I just need another beer, another shot of vodka. I just thought I was a sickening disgusting human being and I decided to move out to Banff and continue my debauchery in alcohol. And I did that for... 1993 through 2014. 

And I don't know how I survived. I don’t know how my liver took it. But yeah, I survived. Finally when my body just said no, you can't do this anymore. And my nerves sort of got shot and I've never had any problem with drinking. Drinking was the thing that saved me. Now the thing that saved me, I couldn’t do it anymore. It was like, oh my god. 

So I phoned my lovely sisters in Toronto and said “I’m going crazy, please help me! I’m going to kill myself!” And they said come back and you can live here for as long as you want, don't worry about it. And then I came back and I finally said I’ve got to tell them how I feel about myself. And I did and they took me to the doctor and my doctor got me hooked up for CAMH and then I went and they sent me to a rainbow drug treatment and alcohol treatment there and I met a doctor there and he really helped me, and he prescribed medication, which just, I don't know how it did it but it sort of, it really helped me and I stopped drinking for about I don't know, about three months, which I had done before, just out of free will. But this time when I fell off the wagon and I started drinking again, I got so sick. And the doctor said, no, the medication isn’t supposed to make you sick. So I don't know if it was the fact that I was on hormones and it was changing my body physically, but when I drank after not doing it for so long, I got so sick. 

I basically completely quit smoking and drinking it just... I don't want to anymore. It made me sick. So now I feel very healthy and with the hormones, I feel very happy. Now I have normal human being problems not crazy drunk, want to be transgendered woman problems. 

LIFE NOW

My hope since dreams for the future? Well, my hopes and dreams for the future are to finally be happy. Constantly. Well not constantly. I realized that everyone’s life is not necessarily constantly happy, but what drives me, what makes me happy, is developing friendships. But most of the people I've met since I started a transition. I’ve met most of them online or through Sherbourne Health Clinic’s Mature Trans Women meetings. Just meeting them in the park and getting to know them and speaking to them through messenger and a couple of zoom meetings and so I really want to nurture those relationships. 

When the patio did open here on Church Street, (I live very close to Church Street) me and a new friend I met online went for drinks and I had to meet her over (for drinks… not alcoholic drinks) for drinks on the patio and I had to walk over there my place on Sherbourne Street to Church Street, and I’m walking over there, I'm all dressed up. And I'm walking by some guy and he points at me and he just starts laughing. So I guess I'm gonna have to start getting used to that. 

When I'm starting these relationships with people, I'm making sure every single thing I say is honest, it doesn't matter what it is, there's no lies that I'm saying I'm not saying, like I did before, “Oh yeah, I’m macho this. I didn't lose.” I can just be myself and it's so much better to be able to say things like that. I mean. Having somebody to empathize with you and having a girlfriend is... just love it. 

Oh my god. I have all these things I want to do but there’s not enough time. Yeah, I want to meet a guy and have a happy relationship. I mean, my expectations aren't really crazy or anything, I just want to have a happy life but yeah, those relationships are the thing that's keeping me going. If I didn't have those, yeah, I would be really bad because at the beginning I was like that, when I first moved out of Pat's house and was just beginning of my transition.

LOOKING BACK

Well, if I could go back 10 or 15 years ago or longer. I would tell myself to transition, do something. Change your life. Talk to someone, talk to a doctor. I mean at different points of my life I thought different things about how I was or how I, and I think that at any time of my life I could have gone to a doctor and asked him and told him how I felt (or her). And they may have, or maybe not, they may have steered me in the right direction. I mean if I had a therapist or a counselor, someone to speak to about it. It would have helped. And remember that you're not the only one there's so many other people that are like you and they haven't made that decision yet. So you tell that person. Make sure that along with your happiness, you work to make other girls' lives a little bit easier. 

RUSCHELLE’S MESSAGE TO YOU

Well, if I had anything to say to the world about me; Please don't think I'm scary. I'm just a person that was in the wrong body. I was a man. But I was me; a female. And as that man, as that female in that man body, was a terrible person. I brought pain to so many people, men, women, professionally, socially, romantically. 

I am so much better now. I've only become happy recently. So my life has just started. 

And I'm happy.

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