Meet Dimitria (she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Dimitria's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/eOBob6u_A88

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My name is Dimitria Sparrow. I go by she/her pronouns and I am currently 22. I live in Barrie Ontario Canada. I work in a corrugate factory and I work on one of the press machines there, so I spend most of my time there. Not at all having the opportunity to be, you know, glammed up like I want to, but it pays the bills and makes me happy, so...

The way I came to understand my identity, something I did not tell my family, for one thing I wasn't in a very good state when I transitioned to be able to like explain a lot of this stuff to them, because the truth is I didn't have a very feminine childhood. I didn't have a lot of gender expression until the time I was 19 when I transitioned. I mean I cross-dressed when I was 11, so there's kind of that going. The main sort of spurt of like where the gender thoughts sort of came in, the dysphoria and all that, was during puberty.

It happens with apparently quite a few people. There were a few instances before that, like I just have like a fascination with certain things, but it was very much like puberty was like this is you this is what's happening.

So in high school there was an art project and my idea for it was, it was having two twins in like one frame and so it was a male and female twin. And so my idea was like, okay I could possibly get maybe like a twin from like twins from like high school to do it. But then my brain is immediately going to maybe I could just fill in for this part. Maybe I could just do that, and so yeah, I got my stepmom to basically do drag on me. So I was about like 16 when that happened so there was that.

And also, I come from like a more creative background and when I was talking about like it these feelings kind of insert themselves in private places where people won't put two and two together, there is a certain character I wrote about that at first I was like oh this is just this beautiful character and she's like my one true love, but now that I look back I’m like that character is me! Like that is a b c d e f g it's like I predicted my personality throughout my childhood. Like the anti-social behavior, the loneliness, the kind of narcissism, I’m not gonna lie, and also like you kind of think like you're crazy and then you try to figure out like certain instances where you know what could have made me think like this. And so that was really weird.

And so like now that I look at it it's like okay I tried to put my personality, put my identity into this female character, and any story I write, it's like all the male characters are often like really boring. And it always ends up being like a mono-e-mono with like two women, so there was that too.

What kind of made me transition was, it's basically when the feelings can't be hidden anymore and they need to be expressed in some sort of better way, in some sort of healthier way. So for a while there it was like, you know, do I always feel this way? Is this something that I always want to be? That was a big question since I was like 15.

When I was 16, 17, I was actually like borderline authoritarian. Like I was a very right-wing young boy, and what happened was I bottled up a ton of emotions in my head because when you're very right leaning you tend to be very like; look after your own lane, don't think about it. It's like a lot of right-wing stuff is like toxic masculinity in a lot of ways, and a lot of family issues, a lot of gender identity issues were kind of bottled up and you don't really know who you are. And then, you know, when I broke out of that, when I broke down, all these emotions just came out.

I mean at that time I was a borderline like authoritarian like a fascist. Not like Nazi, but like fascist and that is a mindset where you look after your own lane, you don't think about anything, you just do what you're supposed to do no matter what the cost. And the costs for me we're bottling up a ton of emotions so there was a ton of that. I was actually a deep depression at the time. I was actually not financially secure. I was actually spending a lot more money than it should be. And yeah, I just had a lot of really bad habits. There were some drinking habits for a little bit. There were some eating habits, and anything concerning finance was really bad and I didn't talk to anybody. And you're kind of under this idea that like you can solve everything yourself.

Basically by the time I was 19 and I was able to have a glass of wine, beer, whatever, I basically got drunk a few times and every time that happened I was super emotional and I knew I was like I want to be a woman like so bad. And it ended up with like, I like bawled my eyes out after like every time I drank and at that point I was like okay something has to change, And yeah I gotta basically process this stuff. And it's like okay where can this identity manifest and it'll be healthy.

The first six months are probably the hardest and the thing you have to understand, in your first six months to like a year you're kind of like a big kid again. Because you're going through like an adolescence again it's almost like let me have the tea party I never got to have when I was five, and it's like kind of like puerile behavior, but also it's like then you know everyone is kind of like looking at you weird and then like society is like you know you're not good enough for us. And then you know, family stuff where you think everyone's accepting but it takes a lot longer actually for people to understand it and deal with it, Now that I mean is obviously very hard and takes a while to kind of come to grips with that and kind of build a thicker skin once again when you've gone through that second adolescence.

I started hormone therapy I suppose about six months in. I was on Spiro which dries you out, so then we moved to cyproterone and I started at estrogen I think in like the seventh month and yeah, I’ve been taking that ever since. It kind of depends on the person in terms of what their sort of journey is going to be. It's not the same for every single person.

For me I was very self-conscious about my voice so that was one thing I wanted to work on quite a lot in order to alleviate that particular dysphoria. And a lot of the thing was trying to figure out how to pass well and how to like you know, feel good in the gender identity you identify as. And for me it was learning about you know, makeup, learning about hair and skin care, and dressing well. And you just have to like pace yourself and not be too hard on yourself as well in terms of your appearance because it's... as much of a difficult time it can be, it's also a very rewarding time. It's new experiences. You're finally you know seeing the side of yourself for the first time so there's a lot of stuff to sort of deal with.

The difficulties I faced in my journey, I’m not gonna lie, I feel like I’d be kind of conceited in saying I’ve had it the worst, because I really haven't. Pretty much all of my family members are talking to me and I’m the more emotional one so like I’m more cut off others, so there is that. So I mean I’m actually very fortunate in that regard and I’m actually working full-time in a union so I think that's probably more rare for trans people, so I’m very fortunate in that regard. I would say the big difficulty for me is kind of coming to grips with, I guess it's just how people view you it can be very shocking and weird. Because I think it's kind of understandable to know that like if you're a straight white dude, you know, you're kind of doing okay, you know, it's not like you enter a room and someone's gonna poke fun at who you are. It's like you kind of gotta say something first, right? But now it's like when you become, you know, basically a minority, there are times where you walk in a room and already people have made assumptions about you. You didn't even have to talk about your opinion on something. So that can be very difficult.

And it's weird because one thing is we like to make sort of labels and sort of identify... put people in groups basically, and one of the most important things I learned was that transphobia doesn't know a face. It's not more a thing for men, that's definitely not true. It's not for you know older people, there are a lot of younger people who are transphobic. And there are people of different races. But all these people could have the exact opposite opinion. So it's very important to not make assumptions in your head when you see someone coming up to you and make assumptions on how they're going to feel about you. Because there are times where you'll make a little bit of an ass of yourself in public and yeah, like, just treat people how you want to be treated right? You know, don't make assumptions about people.

I think the big issue for me at least this is more of a... in my opinion what was really tough for me was finding employment, because I made some decisions in my life that led me from one point to another and wasn't the best decisions. And I found there was a long period where I wanted to go to a job that I was proud of and I could go, you know, I work here, I can make this amount of money and I can support myself. And for a while I was working retail part-time and I hated it. And it felt so humiliating to be honest, and then you have so many doubts about yourself like should I have done this should I have done that. And eventually I went to a corrugate factory as a temp and been working there ever since. And it has been unbelievably rewarding to be at a place where I don't have to deal with a whole lot of scrutiny. Everyone is really sweet and really nice. But what I will say is as sweet as everybody is, there is always a thought in my head that perhaps in my first year of trans transition, if I came to work there, would have been treated the same if they knew me before as male and then I came out in the middle of being employed there, which a lot of trans people have to deal with is really tough. And I think I did have an advantage there in a lot of ways I was very lucky and fortunate that I was kind of in the right place at the right time. This place was hiring and I became a little bit more passable to where I didn't have to deal with all of that drama that could have been there. So yeah, again, not saying I have the absolute worst experience, actually pretty fortunate, very thankful.

The problem with my expectation of coming out is a lot of naivete in that everyone is okay with it, everything is great. And the thing is again you go through that second adolescence where you're kind of just like on top of the world. You feel like no one can challenge you. You know, you are you and you're gonna show the world.

It's like that one time where I saw like this like pretty obviously like gay boy like dancing across the street when we were like at the stop lights. I’m like that's the first time this guy's come out. So it's like you're high on life. And then people start having problems with you and sometimes you experience very personal rejection. And you feel like when you're in that second adolescence when your hormones literally are going crazy, it's like a big stab in the back. So be aware of that that you got to be prepared for how people are gonna look at you and don't expect the worst of people but don't expect that everything is gonna go absolutely smoothly.

I live in Ontario, so I mean that's pretty good. One of the other things that was very tough for me to deal with, but I should have seen it coming, was the trans community can be a little bit difficult.

That word transgender. What does it mean to people? And you know, when you finally are with a community that can understand you and have a similar experience with you, you feel like you can just pour your life out to them and all the emotions that you've bent up inside for years to them. And on top of that if you're a trans woman it's kind of like the first time you feel like you can be in a group and like talk about your emotions, like fully, because you know when you're a boy you're kind of taught not to do that. And like you're not. You kind of just don't know how to do that. So there's all of that and then you start to find that some people have certain standards of what makes someone valid, what makes someone not valid. And you feel like you have to now validate your identity based on what the community is suggesting that you have to be, instead of you just plainly saying this is me and I am valid. One of the other issues is there's a lot of pre-rejection there's tons of sort of in-group embarrassment, sort of distancing yourself from someone who's a little more, you know, whatever, more cringy, a little bit and there are people who like to distance themselves from those people and it's just weird because it's like we're all the same you know and it's really weird and it creates like really toxic atmosphere. And it's all about like going after your own personal interests right? You know if you can distance yourself from someone who's a little a little crazy on that one end but it can up you and make you look good in front of everybody else then the selfish part of you is gonna go for it. But it's not good. It's not cool. And I just think it seems there's just a little bit more of that than I think people like to think. Like how many times have if you're trans have you heard like these particular types of queer or trans people are making us look bad and I just don't like that entire thing because I feel like queer should just be queer.

Tons of people have these like weird standards of what makes you like trans and what validates you and I honestly don't think the community kind of helps that, where it's kind of like you don't need to validate yourself because the group is going to validate you. And that can be very toxic because you don't know how to really validate yourself. And the problem is, you have to kind of figure out how to distance yourself from a lot of that, like the political sphere. Because you start to freak yourself out and you feel like you have to live up to some sort of standard, and try to validate your feelings. Like one of the feelings I sometimes discourage myself to have where I’m like oh I can't have these feelings; if I watch a movie with say like a daughter with like a father figure something like The Glass Castle for instance, or if you watch something like AI where it's like a mother-son relationship kind of throughout the movie, I’m gonna identify with the latter and the thing is it's weird because you'll find that you're like, okay I can't... I’m like... but that doesn't make sense. Like, but if I’m a girl then I should be sympathizing with like the girl character, but it could just be that's what my experience is, right? So those are instances of stuff where I’m not going to deny what I can relate to more.

I’m hoping that every time I go to bed that I wake up, I feel good in knowing that last night or yesterday I got you know just one step further in whatever thing I pursue. Planning financially for the future is like a really big thing for me so if I can do that, if I put a certain amount away every month, that I can feel good about that and I just don't want to be feeling like I’m going backwards or I’m wasting this time in my life so there it is. My dream for the future is to be healthy and to succeed and hopefully be at a point where I am kind of good at something and in this case like beauty wise so I’m looking to be really good at that.

Since I’m 22 and I’m a little bit of a young and I still got a little a little bit of angst in me, I’d say what really gets me out of bed in the morning is honestly just proving everyone I don't like wrong, that I can be good at something. So I mean I do a YouTube channel that helps trans women and cross-dressers present themselves and stuff like that and that is one of the projects that can help me like go like, I can be good at this thing. I’ve always wanted to be good at like a particular sort of skill because I mean blue collar jobs are great and I respect everyone in it, but the thing is it's not like something you could go to school for, right? So I mean if I can go to like a mini school in my head and like be good at like these things and be able to help people at these things, then that'd be really cool. And honestly, just going to bed knowing that like I didn't waste time because I don't want... everyone tells me like you know, 21, 22, it's like the best time of your life and stuff and I just want to make sure I don't screw it up.

It really helps at least in my experience that basically the outside matches the inside and that is like one of the big things for a lot of trans people that can cause a ton of mental and social anguish so I’m fairly happy with where I am I always want to see what I can do better. The most liberating thing about coming out is you're finally who you are you.

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The Space Between

Life has a way of finding balance. 

You have heard it said that Nature abhors a vacuum.

In the space between male and female, there are those who would have us believe there is nothing; that these are only the binary ends. There are those who would have us believe there is only a vacuum in between, but, as Voyager is showing us, even where we think there is nothing, there is something. Those of us who are non-binary are living proof that there is definitely something in the space between the binary.

In fact, there are many genders that fill the space between the binary ends of the gender spectrum. We are the LGBTQ+ community, and we have been around for as long as there have been the binary poles. 

Those who do not believe we have always been here are actually part of the reason we have remained unseen - a self fulfilling prophecy if you will. The stigma placed upon being queer has made it a difficult place in which to live. So, as a matter of safety and social acceptance, many choose not to disclose their identity, making us all more invisible. 

It is no surprise, then, that in this time of growing understanding and protection of LGBTQ+ people, we are seeing more people “coming out”, because they feel safer to do so. 

This is not a trend. There are not suddenly more LGBTQ people being somehow "created". We have always been here. We have always existed. Many just chose not to see us, and many of us chose not to be seen. Now, however, we are feeling more comfortable with sharing who we really are, and so you are starting to see more of us.

Living in the space between gives those of us in the non-binary universe a unique perspective on those living at the poles; one that I believe can benefit all of humanity, helping us find balance and beauty in the entire spectrum and bridging the gap between. In fact, to silence our voices actually hurts all of us. Non-binary people have been forced to listen to the cis-normative narrative their entire lives, and many of the struggles we face are deeply rooted in the shame of not being what people think we should be. The vast range of identities in the spectrum of LGBTQ persons can actually bring balance to the views of cis-binary individuals who are deeply divided by their own gender, creating issues such like hyper radical feminism and misogyny. The narratives and views of the LGBTQ+ community can actually help us bridge the gap and ease the tension that exists between those binary poles.

By learning about, accepting and including those in the space between, we now have a means to unite humanity - and keep us united. We become less polarized and more unified because the bridge between demonstrates that we are all essentially connected. Diversity is no longer seen as diluting the whole, but rather our diversity COMPRISES the whole.

If you find yourself strongly defending the binary, take a moment to ask yourself why? What is it about making sure everyone conforms to the binary that is so important? You are perfectly happy being binary, but what about those in between? Should they be less content? Ask yourself, what can I learn from someone who is gender non-conforming?

And if you yourself are gender non-conforming, love yourself! You are important! You are special, and you have a place of honour in this world. You are the glue that can bind the binary together and make us whole again. Ask yourself, how can I contribute to a better world? How can I help others see through my eyes?

You are all special, binary and non-binary alike. You are valued and needed.

Love you all!

Cary

Meet Dyann (she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Dyann's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/DemcP-5GeDM

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So my name is Diane Jackson. My father was in the military, so I’ve traveled across the world. I’ve been in Europe, all across Canada, and throughout the United States.

Pronouns: I struggle with that one.  I mean my name and my visual appearance is very feminine so I identify with the feminine. I’m not going to go upon somebody and force them to use a certain set of pronouns. I want them to be comfortable to be to work with me and be happy with working with me, so I think the idea of a social acceptance is what works best for me as opposed to going in and saying, you know, that you have to call me ze, or you have to call me zur, or whatever the case may be. I think my presentation is fairly self evident.

So I would say that prior to coming out, when I was in school, because I’m on a military base, because the military is so conservative, I was petrified to come out. I was worried about being ostracized from my family, my community, the people around me. And a lot of the Canadian military bases are not... like they're not in the middle of a big city like Toronto. They're not in a big city. Not even a hamilton-sized city like... well, okay, CFB Winnipeg was a fairly large city but I was very young at that time.

When I truly came to the point of recognizing who I am, I was in a very small town in New Brunswick the base was CFB Chatham, the town is now known as Miramichi, and I saw the way the community at large was dealing with people who came out as homosexual. And I was petrified of that. I was scared of that. So I was very low-key. I was very quiet. I didn't draw any attention to myself. I was the person that people could forget was in the room, and it was intentionally so. 

When we moved to Toronto, which was the next base my father moved to, I felt a little bit more confident because I wasn't staying on the base itself. I was associating more with people off the base, and you start to see a lot more liberated people. More the LGBT community, although back in the early 90s I wouldn't say LGBT. I don't think we used that term back then, but a lot more lesbians a lot more gays. And the terminology they did use back then was probably a bit more crude, but, for lack of better words, the "Trannies", and it gave me a little bit more confidence to at least explore who I was at least give it a shot. But again in that time frame we were a very conservative society. We weren't ready to embrace people like that. So a little bit of exploration. I was still a little bit quite conservative, not ready to move on. But probably the first time I actually went out outside my home cross-dressed, was with my second partner, Karen. And you know, we went down to the value village and got a whole bunch of things that we thought would work, and you know, they were reasonably flattering and not too overly "overt" shall we say and that started me down the path. 

In the early stages it was very traumatic. It was very hard. I knew what I was feeling at the core. I knew what I was feeling about myself. So that would probably be entering puberty at the time. I just felt a disconnect with myself and my body and my anatomy. But I was slowly exploring, you know, male attire, female attire, trying to figure out what worked best for me. 

Then I saw an episode, I think it was a Maury Povich. I saw an episode of that. And they were talking about what was... the terms they used in the 80s was transvestite and transsexual, and I watched an episode of that, and I thought, well, okay. I identify with some of those things, I get some of those features. But then I saw the way the audience was reacting to these people and that was kind of like, well I don't know if I really want to make that public that I identify that way. It was also hard and traumatic because I’m typically a very conservative person. I mean the only thing that really is flamboyant about me is my hair (and there's a little bit of psychology behind that when the hair gives that kind of a shape so it looks like there's a feminine jawline) whereas  everything about me is very conservative. I wear black cardigans, I wear beige clothing. If you met me in public you probably would just overlook me because I just look so passive and conservative. Because that's my nature. And I saw these people acting flamboyant. It was very off-putting. To me those people always appear to be the ones that are looking to draw attention to themselves. So that part of the discovery was hard. That was difficult. 

When I got to the point where I was like, you know, this is really starting to affect my life, it's starting to affect my relationships, it's started to affect my careers. Well, I was very at the time, I don't know if I’d say career, let's say just jobs. I went to my doctor and asked to see a psychologist and I explained my situation and my psychologist went nope you need to go over to the Clark Institute. So I went to the Clark Institute and went through, oh my gosh, it must been a barrage of tests over like a four day period. I was in and out of that place while they were doing all that. That part was kind of comforting because what I was going through, I wasn't unique in it. There was other people that were going through that. So I felt a little bit of comfort. But what I did find was like a proverbial punch in the butt -- gut.

When I came home and I talked to my mother about it my mother was very opposed to the situation which was perplexing to me. Just a side note, my mother has always been the passive person in the relationship and my father has always been... well he's military right? So you see your father as a stoic type of person. And my mother looked me in the eye and said I don't want any fucking part of this. I don't want to do any of this. I don't want it. And that kind of ended the relationship for about 10 years. I just stopped talking to my parents. That was that was devastating. That was heartbreaking.

And I could see person people who didn't have as much strength as me being very traumatized if not suicidal by such a comment. To me it was just a comment of okay let's double down. I’m gonna move forward with my life whether you like it or not.

My second partner when I first met her, I was head over heels for her when we first met, and I told her openly, this is who I am, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to go; the path I want to pursue. And she's like okay, I can handle that we can move forward. And ironically she found out about the surgeries being relisted in Ontario before I did. And she's like, did you hear about this? Did you? And I was like, no I didn't. Are you serious? Like the government's really paying for the surgery again? So I did the process all over again went back to my family physician who sent me to the psychologist. They already had a file on me so they sent me to what was now known as CAMH, and CAMH pulled out all the files and dusted off all the cobwebs on them and they're like okay, well, you've already gone through all this part of it. We already said that you were a candidate for this. So we want you to do two years of lived experience and we want to make sure you're on hormones for that period of time as well. And I was blessed because I was able to you now go underneath her wing, so when we were going out I was by her side and she helped me build up my confidence to be more public. And that was to me that was important because before I met Karen I was a bus driver, so I’m in the public eye all the time. And then I was scared to be in the public eye, as a woman. And then when I met Karen, was kind of like, no let's build up your confidence. Let's do this. Everything works out fine. And I went back into being a bus driver. 

And as a driver I’ve been all the way up to Winnipeg all the way down to Florida. I’ve been to Quebec more times than I can count, and you know, New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia. You're very much in the public eye when you're a bus driver. Everybody wants to talk to the bus driver. That was 2012 and this is 2021 so obviously things are working out.

I definitely would say that in the very beginning, definitely family was a little bit of a challenge. My mother not being totally accepting, my younger brother being very frustrated was, about this, he couldn't understand why I wanted to do this. 

Other challenges, again, I think it's part and parcel of the journey you know when you are accepted as a woman completely and wholly and unconditionally, then you start receiving the prejudices that come along with being a woman. 

But there's a lot of psychological challenges too, like, I know I’m getting acceptance from what I would call the cisgender community. And that's to be anticipated. There will be some challenges that come along with that. But then I get a lot of pushback from the GLBT community as well. Like in my early stages, I walked into a meeting, it was supposed to be a support group, and you know, when I walked in the meeting and everybody's all eyes on me, and I sit down, and they're kind of like, okay, let's start the meeting. And I’m looking at them, I’m going, I’m not the talk, I’m not the presenter here. I’m here just like you guys. And the jaw dropping by about, I think it was like 12 of us inside this room, was like, really? Are you serious?

On my day of surgery I walked into the... we were all sitting down there, six of us. We were sitting down having dinner. And this one here, yeah I’m here for my gender reassignment surgery. And another lady over here, oh I’m here for this dude. And they went around the table and then it came back to me and they're like, so what are you doing? You're getting your breasts done or some of that. I said no, I’m here for gender reassignment surgery as well. And again, everybody just jaw dropped. So that can be a challenge because people think you know more or you are more than what you really are.

And I find myself going whoa, let's rein in, let's slow this down a little bit. Let's try and be a little bit more slow on this, because I’m on the same boat, in the same path as you guys. You know, I’m not doing anything more special. Maybe I have some innate gifts given to me, but I’m not, my path is not much different than anybody else's. So that's, to me that's a challenge. That's an issue that comes up a lot.

I think all of us struggle with, even when we've started our transition, you know, are we feminine enough, are we masculine enough? Or whatever the case may be. And I was blown away how quickly the community at large, as in society at large, was ready to accept me as a woman. I was not expecting that. And that has been a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand I’m being really accepted. I’m, you know, I’m making progress, I’m doing a job. But because... I have one employer who didn't know, didn't ask, and just saw me as a woman. But that worked against me in my job because, you know, discrimination against women. Oh you can't drive a bus. You can't drive a truck. You can't do any of those things, and then, you know, like, then you show it to them and they're kind of like, well I don't understand. I’m confused by that. And so little things like that. And to me... so you have the double-edged sword on that perspective of things, and then you have the double-edged sword on the other perspectives like, oh my god, I passed so well that you can't think... you don't see it's possible or it's not even in your mindset that this person was a male. But then you get all the other stuff that comes along with that, you know, that women can't do this, and women can't do that. And you know, it's yeah. I don't... It's hard to say. Some things are better and some things are worse. But it's part and parcel of the journey right? 

It's very fascinating because I would say since 2015, when I tell people I’m trans now, they're kind of like, oh, I wouldn't have known that. Oh well, okay. And then the conversation moves forward.

The last the last five years there's been a big shift. Like even my last employer, the one I just applied to, I said listen, you've asked for my school records and I need to give you advanced notice that my school records say David. They don't say Diane. And she's like, oh, okay, well, that makes you the third trans person at our facility and it makes you the, you know, we have three lesbians and four gay people and we're only a small team of about 60 employees. So you know, carry on. 

So like, and I guess partly because Ontario Northland is a government agency; it's a crown corporation. So I think they're already on board with stuff like that. But I’ve had the other way around, where I felt like I was being punished for it. 

I worked for a bus company called Batter and you know there was a big hoop law that happened on the bus and I had to divulge my gender identity because of the situation. And my manager openly like, I’m stunned even repeating this, I’m stunned that this actually happened, but she's like well you know you're just gonna have to deal with the male chauvinism just like the rest of the women in here. And it's kind of like, this is 2014. You're really saying that you're really behaving that way?

I’m happier. I’m smiling. I’m interacting with the community and the community is interacting with me the way that resonates with me. My soul is just happy all the time, you know, instead of being judged on a level over here, I’m being judged on the level over here. 

When you're in a work environment and someone looks at you and they say well, you know, if you can't handle it, you know, your two choices; you either man up or quit . You know, that's the only two ways of moving forward. Now in an employment situation people are so much less likely to say things like that. I’m getting a lot of, well how do I help you? How do we move forward with this? What works best for you? And that's what I was looking for before and now it just flows. It just happens in our society. And it's just I love it. It blows me away. You know, to degrade somebody because they don't have the skills and you're not willing to teach them, why don't you just say you don't want to teach that? Why do you degrade me as an individual?

The other thing that I find is exciting is that my friendships and relationships, they don't feel superficial anymore. They don't feel kind of just surface. I get to know people and people are very...  people are very supportive and polite and respectful. And people are turning to me and I love it. It's just, it has been so much better since not only just coming out, but having the surgeries and you know being accepted as the true person that I feel I am. 

I love meeting people I enjoy interacting with people. I just have fun, and it makes life so much more enjoyable. And you know, the job I just had as an instructor, I’m teaching people... Keep it in context, these are people who are coming to me who have worked at Tim Horton’s or Walmart or you know, some little minimum wage job, and I’m teaching them how to drive a vehicle where their income is going to jump from 20,000 a year to 70 grand a year, you know, that's motivating. That's exciting. And I get to go, I’m the person that did that I help that person get there. I helped them have success, you know? 

My new job, I’m going to be going back to driving a bus myself, and the areas that these companies service are usually very small towns. Like sometimes there's only one gas station. Sometimes there's not even a restaurant and they come to these bus stops and they're waiting for someone to take them to Winnipeg, to Ottawa, to Toronto, wherever it may be. And you know, like, again, I am one of 50 drivers that help these people to get to their destination. It could be for medical reasons. It could be because of changing their life. That is exciting to me. I participated in that person's life. Maybe not incredibly directly, but you know. 

When I was doing tour bus, I’m picking up people that come to from China or Hong Kong, or you know Korea, Vietnam. I’m bringing them to Canada and I get to be the ambassador for North America. When they come in the winter time, I get to bring them up to Algonquin park and you should see their eyes pop out of their head because you know the red and gold and yellow leaves and you know, as we're coming into Algonquin park you hear the cameras going tick, tick, and by the time we're not even 500 meters into the park the cameras are all ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch, and it's just, I’m the ambassador. I’m the one that gets these people to see that, and it's just awesome.

I get to have these little moments that are incredibly... it's like an adrenaline rush, it's like euphoria, it's like all these things all put into one little package. And I influence all these people. It's the endorphin rush of being the center of attention.

What I’d like to see happen in the future is more about what society can do as a whole as opposed to me as an individual. You know, I see that our we're polluting this environment, I see that we have these huge plastic garbage patches in the ocean. I see that we have the technology and the ability to make ourselves a very sustainable, a very productive society, and I really want our society to reflect on those things and try to act on those things so we can make our lives, our society, our people, live a lot longer. But there's also got to be a balance, and I worry that there is this extreme rhetoric right now. It's a balance act. We've got to find the act. Yes we need to do better with our environment, but not go to extremes. And I think that's typical of our human nature. We see something we jump on it and we want to go to an extreme. I want our society to live in a healthier balanced environment.

I’m going up north to North Bay and I’ve never lived there. I’ve visited a couple of times but this is my first move, major move, as in, you know, more than five hours away from Toronto. I’m doing it on my own. I don't have any supports around me. I don't have any friends up there. This is purely about getting the job up there. So the challenge is, you know, go up there, get the training, keep the job, make friends, meet new people, create a new community, get exposure to a much smaller town (there's only 50 000 people there as opposed to the almost 200 000 in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, as opposed to the 4 million in the Toronto area). 

Challenges are probably going to be very much like most people. I feel like life has kind of reached a level of normalcy and now I’m going to be dealing with what everybody else deals with; bills, car payments, insurance, you know, the things that everybody else complains about. Guess what? I got that too! 

I don't meet a lot of people who, what I would say have successfully transitioned, and they get frustrated, and they get upset and they get angry, and I would love to pull them under my wing and help them, show them what I’ve done and how to move forward, but they're not, a lot of them are not ready for that. And there are people who are so stuck in certain parts of their life, and they're stuck on the government support systems that they'll never appreciate or see the benefits of having such an income. You know, being able to travel to Mexico or being able to travel to the Dominican. Those people will never ever see that and I’m excited about that. I’ve fallen back on skills that I have, which is, I know how to drive a vehicle, and I do it very well. I don't know anybody in my field that can say that they've driven 22 years without an accident. 

I would like to see the trans community get a little bit of help by the average person just by being patient. Just by relaxing, giving them a chance. You know, we all have our, you know, some of us wear glasses, some of us have hearing aids, some of us have other issues, you know. And someone who's trying to find out what their gender identity is; it's not much different really. Like we're all trying to do a self-discovery of some sort. We're all trying to find out how we can best function in society and we just need a society that can be patient. Stop demonizing us. Stop making us look like we're bad. Stop making us look like we're hysterical, crazy, off the wall people. Just give us some room to breathe and be patient with us.

But I think that level of respect has to be coming from both sides, you know? If we are going to sit here and scream at the cisgender community about you know you're not giving us a chance, well we have to give them a chance to grow as individuals to learn how to be patient.

It comes together. It does work itself out. It does make a difference in the end. But having the life experience that I’ve had, I probably would have told myself to push a little bit more. Not aggressively, but to pursue it. Because I really do feel like, had I not chosen to wait, I probably could have started this path a lot sooner. And I think that leads into another kind of ideology, don't put your life on hold. Don't put your life on hold and wait 20 or 30 years, because when you do that and you put yourself on hold, you're hoping that in 20 years or five years that everything is going to be in place. And what I’ve learned is, society changes so quickly. And so that when you put yourself on hold you're just putting your whole body and your mind and your soul on hold. And you don't move forward. You stagnate. 

Don't forget about the struggles there have been a lot of things that I’ve gone through that have made me the person, made me the character that I am today. And it would be very easy to become cocky and arrogant and forget about that. It would be very easy to be cocky and arrogant to think that every single trans person had the same experience as me and why can't they do it. Yeah, I could see myself doing that and I need that little - I will need that reminder in a few years from now. 

It does get better if you're persistent and you're polite and you're respectful and you treat your community with the same level of decency that you expect for yourself it does get better. It does.

My thoughts actually stem from my historical background. My father is Blackfoot Indian also known as the Siksika Nation. And not all first nations people, but there is a large portion of first nations people that believe in something that's called two-spirited. And I believe that's part of my heritage and part of my soul as well, that you know, I was born with male anatomy, but I have the male and the female spirit within my body. And that allows me to, you know, work with people. I’m able to, you know... people who have masculine spirits and feminine spirits, sometimes they have a hard time communicating with each other and for some reason, when I look at the conversation it's just obvious; okay, this is what you're trying to say, this is how you want to say to this person, vice versa, if this is what you're trying to say, this is what you're trying to... And I’ve met people and it's the weirdest thing that they're a couple and they don't understand each other and yet when I get in the conversation the light bulbs go off, it's like, oh yeah, that's exactly what you're trying to say, that's exactly... so I think that as I said before that comes from my background. It comes from my heritage, and I believe that's part of it. I believe there is such thing as having a combined male and female spirit.

I think we as trans people get so caught up in ourselves we become very selfish. We become very self-centered. And we forget about what gifts we can bring to our society. We need to remember that and we need to participate in that, because I think it's incredibly fascinating that from a spiritual level, I think it's fascinating that at a time that we are seeing the male/female at its most divergent, even though society wants it to be at its most closest, so women's liberation, the feminist movement, stuff like that, yet it's actually causing more of a wedge between the male and the female. It's funny that at the same time that that's happening we are seeing a greater amount of trans people come out. 

In the community from a spiritual perspective, from a holistic perspective, I think it's not a coincidence. I think it's a necessity. I think it's time for us to actually get out there and speak, and bring the two sides - bridge the two sides - together. Otherwise we're just... we're gonna watch our society fall apart.

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