Aren't we all a little queer?

Not so long ago, I despised the word queer. As an adjective, it means "Strange, Odd". Instead, I focused on fitting in, on being normal, as far from strange as possible.  

This is part of why I hid my gender identity for so long. More than that, it's what prevented me from accepting my gender identity.

It has taken a lot of years for me to come to terms with my own queerness. I came to realize that "normal" was a term that means "in the middle"; "the usual, average, or typical state or condition"

When you think about it, what normal person ever accomplished anything? I mean, was Van Gough normal? Was Tesla normal? Is Elon Musk? Can you think of one person who has accomplished great things, who is also "normal" in every way? By embracing the thing that made them different, they contributed something amazing. And we all benefit from those differences. That thing was the thing that made them who they are, and sets them apart from everyone else. So why is it so desirable to be normal?

Perhaps, the desire to be normal is a reaction to bullies who think they are better than us, who want us to fall in line behind them so they can feel more important. It is definitely "safer" to hide who we are, to not be ridiculed by those who choose to deny the diversity of the world. Much like a factory that pollutes the environment around it unaware of the long term problems it is causing. But when we stand up and call out from our differences, we all benefit. Without the environmentalists, those factories would pollute the world, but without the factories, we would not have the products we all enjoy. The symbiosis is complementary. It does not have to be adversarial. But for it to work, both have to see the other as important in their contribution.

None of us is any more or less important than any other. We all have differences. And that diversity contributes to the greater good of everyone.

It is difficult to feel free to move to the edge of the bell curve. It is difficult to sit somewhere at the right hand end of the curve and accept what is at the far left. It is that fear that keeps so many of us from recognizing our own differences, our potential, our greatness... our queerness. The reality is; if we were the normal one, or that person at the other end of the curve were, the whole graph would shift and our world would be out of balance. So isn't it better to accept others? To learn from what they have to offer - even as we recognize that it is not for us? And isn't acceptance that we are not like others also a recognition of each of our individuality? Isn't it simply a recognition of diversity? 

These days I am embracing my own queerness. I mean, I don't expect that will make me something "great" or special in any way, but accepting and embracing myself as I am means I can be authentic, and being authentic means that I can contribute to the world in a unique way. When I do not express myself as I am, I have so much less to offer.

In the end, isn't that better for us all? Isn't a diverse ecosystem much better than one falling apart because it is missing parts? Remember how we discovered the roll that bumble bees had on... everything? Isn't the world better if each of us embraces our own differences and adds to the diversity of the world around us? Not as something separate and distinct, but an important part of the greater whole. What beauty there is in that!

Yes, I'm different, but aren't we all in some way? Every one of us is queer in some way, and we all benefit from everyone embracing who they are! Share it with the world!

Embrace your Queerness!

Love you all!

Cary

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 Cary (They/Them)

What follows is a transcript from Cary's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/FwqMMRQx2-8

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Hi there, my name is Cary and I'm part of the Trans Canada project, but I am also Trans. 

Kelly and I are asking people across the country to tell their stories to let us find out more about them and so it's not really fair to ask all of them to tell their stories if we're not prepared to tell our stories as well. So this is a real challenge for me just like it is for everybody else who's going to participate in the Trans Canada Project but here we go! 

I'm 55 years old. I live in Elmira Ontario, which is just a little town in Ontario, and I honestly do not even know if there's any other trans people in the town here. There probably are but we haven't met yet. Hopefully, we'll meet someday and get to share each other's stories together in person.

I identify as non-binary trans and that's confusing for some people because they don't understand the non-binary part. People still can understand the whole being binary trans going one direction or the other all the way but this kind of floating in the middle is difficult for people to understand. But for me personally it was a huge relief and a real explanation to me to help me understand myself. When I understood that I didn't have to be completely one side or the other, that that I could be somewhere on the spectrum; somewhere in between.

It's been a long journey for me, I mean I'm 55 years old so obviously it's going to be a long journey. A lot of my life I struggled with dressing in women's clothes and I'm kind of ashamed to say that I hid a lot of stuff and I kind of snuck around about it and it really didn't feel very good to be doing that and it's still hard for me because a lot of my family doesn't accept the way I am and they will tell me so and some of them, when I try to explain it to them. they just shut down. They won't even listen and that's hard too because, you know, everybody feels like they can dump on me and tell me that it's wrong with being trans, but they don't like to hear me explain how it's okay, how it's even “right” what a wonderful thing it is too sometimes. 

I mean I feel like I have learned so much by being trans. Once I started to accept myself, I started to learn to love better, to let go of all the crap that I was carrying with me and I still have some of those things still in there - it's grown in me and it's hard to get rid of some of those things, but I feel like I'm in a much better place now. I'm not hiding things. I can actually live an authentic life and I can work on those things much better. 

Probably the thing that drives me the most is my faith. My faith in God. Lots of people define that differently but growing up in a Christian church I certainly have not thrown out all of the principles or the things that I learned through the Christian church. The moral foundation that it laid was good and I can still say that even though I struggle with some of the beliefs of some Christian people, I have a very strong faith and a few years ago I felt God telling me that, you know what, this is okay Cary. I'm okay with it. And it took me a long time to process that and get around that but eventually I started to accept that in myself and I was able to give myself some grace about it, feel better about it, and I learned a lot of things about love.

I got connected with communities that loved me even though I was trans and even some Christian communities, which was a surprise even to me because, you know, I didn't expect to find Christian communities that would be accepting of people who are trans and gay.

When I struggled with this, with being trans, I wrestled with it so much with god. I would pray so hard. I was so challenged by it and it was just really hard, but I find it interesting that since I’ve accepted it, since I’ve felt God's acceptance in it, that I feel the burden lifted. I feel lighter, you know? There are things in the bible that talk about the joy that comes in just trusting in God; in leaving things to him, and I really feel that.

You can say what you want about scripture verses that are interpreted a certain way, you know? You can argue all those things and I - let me tell you I can argue a lot of them right along with you but I cannot deny the experience of God in my life, and that's what guides me.

There's a lot of people who say they're Christian and are struggling with being gay or being bi or trans or whatever. I want to tell you that God loves you and that it's okay.

The greatest challenge for me has been just my family. I've found great support from a number of communities. I've found great support even from the community around me in general. I've been out, literally dressed, I mean when you're trans it's very visible to people, and you know, I'm sure people tag me as male and often a male in a dress or a skirt and that does still bother people sometimes. But it's been very good. I mean a lot of people are being very good about it, even if it does bother them. I have been accepted and it's been good.

But the greatest challenge for me has definitely been my family. I know they care about me and they want what's best for me and that when they tell me things it's coming from a good place. But honestly, when I challenge them, you know, what is really wrong with it? Why are you concerned? What are the things that … why do you see it as a problem? It's really hard for them to give me an answer and I know, I know that's because there really isn't an answer to that I mean I lived on the other side of that fence. I was one of those people who did that and I know that there is really no reason why this is wrong or bad. But it's very hard when you've been told that all your life, to believe that, and so my family is kind of still stuck in that place and I don't hold anything against them for that because I know what that's like. 

Yeah, coming out has made things easier for me in a lot of ways because I feel more authentic within myself. I feel the shame of it that I had is gone and the burden of carrying that around and feeling like I'm hiding part of myself all the time, constantly trying to hide it, it's gone! There's still the challenge of being out as in, you know, visibly wearing this, and I don't mean the clothes, I mean like just visibly wearing the fact that I'm trans. Because being trans is very visible and people can easily see it. There's the challenge of doing that but being able to take all of that weight and the shame that was part of that and just letting it go has been such a huge blessing to me. And it really has brought a lot of joy to my heart and I find myself smiling more, laughing more than I have in a long time, and just in that way generally happy, even though there's other parts of my life where there are still challenges and things to be worked through and figured out.

I'm still in the process of this transition, and it's hard to say exactly where it will go. I mean who really knows what the future is going to be like? What it's going to hold? Who really knows how things are going to turn out? But I'm feeling good about the direction of this even though there are huge challenges ahead. 

I listen to what other people say around me, other trans people, and I hear their stories. There can be a lot of hurt, and life can be difficult in some ways, but you know life has challenges no matter what you do. There are things that you have to face and you have to struggle with and you find your way through, and this is just one of those challenges it's just something that is and something I need to deal with and as I learn to deal with it and handle it it's much easier for me to have confidence in sharing it and just living it authentically with other people.

And I think (I hope) as I do that, and certainly with some of the experience that I've had, the more I do that, the more people see the authenticity of it, the more people learn that they can accept it too. And I think when people start to accept it they learn as well. They learn to be better friends. They learn to let go some of the things they thought were so important because they've been taught a certain way, and just grab a hold of something better; something bigger than what they've been taught. 

I’m a morning person and I get out of bed pretty early, and I don't sleep a lot of hours but what gets me out of bed in the morning honestly? I don't know, just the idea of a fresh new day and “what will it hold” and the adventure of it all and just getting out there. This certainly is a grand adventure. My future could look like all kinds of things.

I suppose I'm coming out more and more - I mean just the very fact that I'm putting this video together is a huge step of coming out. And that can be really scary because I don't know how people will react. I don't know what other people will do and I have no control over that of course and even now I think it would be easier just to hide. Even if I just completed a transition, it would be a lot easier just to hide as a woman, perhaps, but doing that would be still hiding right? And I think I really want to live authentically. I really want to live the way I am and the way -- the way god made me. 

If I could talk to myself 10 years ago, I don't know, I mean I would probably try and convince myself that I was okay first of all. I would probably try to tell myself that, you know, that this is fine, and you will be fine. But honestly, you know, 10 - 20 - 30 years ago things were not the same in the world it was a lot harder I think to come out. A lot harder to live this authentically. There were a lot more people that were very much against it and it was very much less understood than it is now. I think this is a much better time to be coming out. Honestly, I guess that makes me chicken, but that's okay too. 

If I could remind myself of something in 10 years from now? Of course I don't know what I'll be like in 10 years, or where I'll be or what the world will be like in 10 years. But if I could remind myself of one thing in 10 years I think it would probably be the joy that I felt in just coming out and being able to just experience this and live authentically and just enjoy and appreciate the things that are around me. Because, you know, as life goes on you start to get used to things and some things get easier but I think things also, you know, they become normalized and you start to lose a little bit of that joy in it. So I think it would just be to remind myself of how good this feels right now.

My biggest dream for the future would just be that people would love each other and just see each other as people. It doesn't matter what color, what race, what religion, what ethnicity, what gender, what sex; we're all people. We're all struggling. We're all working towards having a good life and most of us at least are working towards helping others to have a good life. My dream would be that everybody would do that. I mean, world peace and happiness right? 

If I could tell people watching one thing, that thing would probably be; be yourself. Just you do you, I mean. 

People worry sometimes that you're doing you would mean that you're gonna do crazy, stupid stuff and maybe some people would. We have to be careful of that too. But, you know, what if you live in joy and happiness and love for others and love for yourself? Then I think you're going to be on the right track; just do you. Enjoy who you are. Share that with everybody else because the diversity that we have is all part of the blessing of life, and just, please share that with everyone else. 

So, I appreciate the time that I've had here to be able to share my story with you, and I hope you're enjoying all of the other stories in the Trans Canada Project. If you have a story to tell we would love to hear from you; please contact us through our website www.transcanadaproject.ca. if you know somebody who you think has an amazing story, please have them contact us we'd love to talk to them. We want to let people know that Trans people are just regular people, and some of them even extraordinary people, who have fantastic stories to tell, and we want to share those stories with other people. Of course, we can't do all of this without your support, and I would just ask that you consider supporting us either by sending us a donation or by supporting us regularly through our Patreon. Thank you very much. Don't forget to like and subscribe below to see lots more videos about people's stories.

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