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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