If All The World Were Roses

Do you like roses? I like roses. They are pretty, they come in different colours, and they smell nice. 

Everyone loves receiving roses when they have accomplished something; after a play, a graduation, or on special occasions like Valentine’s Day.

Imagine a world where the only flowers in the garden were roses. Wouldn’t it get boring after a while? If your entire garden were filled with only roses, it might be pretty for a while, but it would get boring quickly.

When we look around creation, however, there are hundreds and thousands of different kinds of flowers. Tall ones, thin ones, wild ones, cultivated ones, ones that bear fruit and ones that smell nice. There are even some that smell bad and some that are poisonous. Together they all form an ecosystem that often times thrives because of the diversity, different parts benefiting from other parts in a million interconnected ways.

It’s spring time here in Ontario, Canada, and the flowers are in bloom. I look out the back yard and there are two apple trees that have the most beautiful blossom on them. There are tulips, magnolias, and a host of other kinds of flowers that I couldn’t even name; my partner does all the gardening and I just enjoy the view. I’m glad my yard doesn’t just have roses in it, pretty as they are. I enjoy the diversity.

Isn’t it the same with us? Isn’t it boring when we look out and everyone is the same? Doesn’t diversity bring joy, entertainment, new thoughts, innovation, unexpected perspectives, greater learning, a lighter workload, and so much more? It takes all kinds of people to make this world beautiful, and if we were all the same, it would get boring pretty quickly, just as it takes a wide variety of flowers in a garden.

So next time you look at someone who is different from you, whether it be because of race, or colour, or beliefs, or gender, or sexual preference, or intelligence, or physical strength, show them some love. Tell them how much you appreciate them for who they are, and the diversity they bring. Share your own diversity with them - the things that make you different - share your perspectives on things and listen to theirs with open ears and open mind. Learn from each other. Your world and the world around you will be richer for it.

Meet Stefanie (she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Stefanie's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/R6j6S2Z57qY

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So, my name is Stefanie Pest. My pronouns are she/her and I live in Essex, Ontario, Canada. I have been working in the automotive industry for 37 years.

I was born an assigned male at birth. Nobody asked me anything as a baby and the only thing that doctors, you know, assign sex with, is your private parts. Nobody asked me if I was transgender, which I found out later in life, much later in life, that I am a transgender woman.

My identity became known to me when I was 46 years old, which was 12 years ago. However, when I was seven, I realized that I just didn't fit into a boy role in society. That was a struggle for me for me for my entire life until I discovered that I was trans.

I would seek out women's clothes just to express myself in a female way, which was very helpful in my understanding of who I am.

I was born in the 60s, so society at that time frowned upon, you know, something other than what you see.

Through puberty it became more intense, that I wasn't really a male. And it was difficult to, you know, function. And that was never revealed to anybody. I went through all the male rituals, pretty much pretending, but that was expected of me, a young teenage boy, then later a man. It was expected of me to marry a woman, have children and so forth.

And through all that time it was a struggle. It's like something I thought I would have to live with forever, which was very despairing. But then internet came, and you find out things; that you're not alone, that other people are struggling too. So, my gender identity as a trans woman became evident to me. My bell was rung, and you can't un-ring a bell.

So, I am married, and I told my wife that moment I found out. She looked at me and said, "my dear, I knew that." She knew before I did, and she became very, very supportive of me. It was very difficult for both of us to go through that process but it's very, very critical that you have this communication between partners that you're sharing your life with. That was the key to our success and in our marriage, we are still married, and we love each other so much.

So, coming out as a trans woman was not immediate. This was back in 2008 when I realized that I was a trans woman and, what to do? What is the next step? Next step was, I need to transform my body. So, you search for ways to do that.

I chose to do things on my own because I was not sure society would accept who I am authentically. And so, I didn't go to a doctor and I decided to self-medicate with phytoestrogen. These are herbal pills that mimic estrogen and they were helpful because before that I was, you know, because of my depression I would have antidepressant drugs and they never ever work. But when I started taking phytoestrogens it seemed to make, you know, a change that... a change occurred. A good change. I felt more content with myself.

But it was not enough. I always wanted more. And so, it came to a point where I did have to go to a doctor, and they prescribed pharmaceutical estrogen. I went to see an endocrinologist who I'd been saying before because I suffered from prolactinoma which is a tumor in your pituitary that produces prolactin which is a female hormone that women produce when they're pregnant. So, it was an indicator that maybe yes this is for sure valid; my identity is as a woman.

When I started those estrogen, that hormone therapy, I noticed a magnificent change. I became more content with myself and my life changed dramatically. But I was still not out to the world I was only out to my wife Michelle and I have two boys that were in school and we were in an empty nest situation. And so, it was easy for me to be Stefanie at home, but in the world in a society I was still my former male self.

It came to a point where I did feel confident enough to come out. I came out to my children. My oldest was married so there were three and we got them together. And we this was on a Victoria Day in 2016 that I came out to them and they were very supportive. But when they discovered that I had known I was trans back in 2008 they became sad because I had to hide this from them.

In hindsight I probably didn't have to. I knew that I had the love of my children and that they would be supportive. And then I decided, oh I must do more, always more, and I started electrolysis and laser treatments to remove my facial hair, my body hair, to be more feminine

Yeah so, the beginning of my coming out actually had a signal that I was ready to come out.

There was a survey produced at our plant that wanted to find out about the makeup of our worker workforce, you know, male, female, religion, and all that stuff. And so, when it came down to the form saying, you know, your gender, I kind of was wondering what to put there. I wasn't completely out so I decided to go see our women's advocate, which was unusual for a male to go see somebody like that. But they were very, very supportive and um I didn't know if I was the first one that came up with this but they told me that it was perfectly fine to put whatever I feel comfortable putting on that form. So, I made a new line and I put trans woman and that felt so so freeing, to do that, exposing myself to a survey which is a private matter. But for me to do that was a big step and that was actually only a month before I told my kids and I think that might have been the trigger that I was ready to come out and face the world as Stefanie. a trans woman, so then I decided to actually come out on my birthday July 7th.

I went to the commissioner. Here in Ontario, it's required to give an oath to say that you are changing your name, changing your gender, and I did that on my birthday in 2016. I came out to my co-workers at Chrysler a few weeks after that. We had a shutdown and I told him the day before that when we come back from our vacation that I will have transformed from a male to a female. And I had much, much support from my coworkers and I was gladdened by that. That was another stigma that we have in the trans community that we're not accepted, and I was very, very fortunate that the people around me supported me in that way.

So, the other thing while I was at the women's advocate and discussing my gender identity with them, they told me that I was not the first. There was a trans man that had come out maybe a year before I did. And they suggested that I contact this person because they were running a peer-to-peer support group for trans people in Windsor called trans spectrum. And I was shocked, you know, I was overjoyed that there was somebody else that was going through the same thing I am.

And so, I decided to reach out to this person and attend these meetings that they had. I think it was once a month that we would go to and other trans people would come and we would, you know, relate our experiences, you know, being trans in our community. And that was the start of a wonderful friendship.

It also was the beginning of my advocacy because listening to other trans people, and this was my first exposure to other trans people, I had no exposure previous to that at all, and I was amazed at how privileged I am, that I didn't go through some of the discrimination and prejudice that most trans people experienced. My decision at that point was I have a voice that may help my own community; my new community that I’m a part of, that I could speak and have that courage to do that for others that do not have that ability with the privilege, the white privilege that I have, the privilege of a really good job, a loving supportive family, this is not a common occurrence in our trans community. And that needs to change.

In our trans community we have people that are not able to speak for themselves because of the stigma that we face in society right now. We are dependent on the majority of the population, which is the cis population,

those are people that are assigned a sex at birth and are content with that, as opposed to trans people and gender diverse people that are not. We need the cis population to educate themselves. We need them to advocate and become allies for the trans community at levels that most people don't wish to do, to protect the, you know, the most vulnerable in our society. I’m not just talking about trans people, but people living with disabilities. There's so many people that require these barriers to be taken down so that our society can flourish.

I am so happy to be a part of the family that I am in. My wife Michelle has been by my side since the very beginning of my trans journey and I want to thank her for being such a loving partner to me and my children, Michael, Courtney, Patrick. That they have been so supportive of me and they still call me dad, because that's who I am. And I can't express it enough how much love I have for them that they are part of my journey.

I would like to say that through my coming out only five years ago that the people that I have met I have created an extended chosen family that has shown me love and respect of who I am. And I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart, and I know that those people have gone forward and been allies to our trans community. I would wish that would grow exponentially and that would change the way we see the trans community now in society. That we should be accepted as the people we are.

We are human just like everyone else.

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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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