Meet Dianne (she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Dianne's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/3FEOBZpNkUg

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My name is Diane Skoll. I’m a transgender woman. I live in Ottawa. My day job is as a software developer. I have a side hobby as a stand-up comedian. I transitioned fairly late in life. I was 48 when I started living full-time as a woman and I’ve been doing so since 2015. 

As for my identity, I’m not non-binary. I’m definitely female identifying, but I actually have a child who is non-binary so I’m fairly familiar with that aspect under the trans umbrella as well, but for myself I’ve always identified as female. Ever since I was quite small, I knew something was up. 

Well, it first started when I was about six years old and I kind of had these weird wishful almost fantasies of being a girl. And I didn't understand this. This was in the 70s. There wasn't much information, certainly not for a six year old, so I just ignored it, suppressed it, and then when puberty hit that's when it really hit me that something was different about me and so I initially assumed that I just liked to cross-dress. I didn't know why I liked it, I just knew that I liked it. And then as I got further through puberty I just put it down to like a kind of a kink or a sexual fetish and so I didn't really think about it more than that. I went through what I think are fairly typical phases of buying clothes and then purging them, sort of a fear of loathing and self-disgust, and the cycle went on a few times. And then I met somebody when I was 19 years old and we actually got married when I was 23 and I assumed that having a partner would make these feelings disappear because again I thought they were just sexual and I thought I could just get rid of them. But clearly that didn't work. I still felt urges to present female.

I had told my partner before we were married. I told her that I liked to present female but I didn't tell her that I was transgender because at that time I didn't understand that myself. Anyway we had three kids and so for about 18-19 years I just suppressed everything and then it just all blew up in a huge way, overwhelming gender dysphoria, and I had to confront the issue. And so it wasn't until my late 40s that I really understood who I was and what I had to do to live an authentic life.

Living with it was difficult because I just suppressed it for most of my married life but when I did finally accept it, I remember vividly the exact day actually it was a Christmas party in 2013 at a trans support group. I went to their party and I realized, hey this is deeper than just wearing women's clothes I’m a woman. At that point my marriage was in trouble not only because of the trans issues but for a whole bunch of other reasons. So my partner and I were seeing a marriage counselor at that time and in one of the sessions I said look, I’m a transgender woman. I’m not just a cross-dresser. And so the counselor was very taken aback and so was my wife at the time. But I had to be truthful. So I started taking steps to physically transition. I started seeing a gender therapist. I started doing hair removal laser hair removal and then I came out to my mother. My father had died in 2013, so he never knew about this. I came out to my mother and she was very shocked and surprised because I’d never given any inclination of this before as far as she could tell but she was supportive. She said, you know if that's what you are and that's what you have to do, then I’ll support you. Same with my sisters. I came out to them and they were supportive. And I finally came out to my kids who also initially were very taken aback and my youngest was quite upset because she didn't understand. She was quite young. She didn't understand what it meant. She thought I would be disappearing and some strange person coming in my place. But she quickly found out that no, I’m still the same person inside, I just look and present a little bit different. So my kids were all fine. But it was the death knell for my marriage, which was in terrible trouble anyway. And so that just killed it. So my marriage ended in October of 2014 and in April of 2015 is when I started living full-time as a woman. And I have done so since then, and I’ve done a lot of steps of medical transition as well. I know not every trans person wants to do that but for me it was fairly important to do that and I just felt so much better once I was out and living as myself

I’m very lucky and privileged in many ways. For example I’m only five foot two inches tall, so like, I can pass for female at a casual glance very easily so I’ve never had people hassle me or give me a hard time. And I realize that is not the experience for a lot of trans people, and so I feel incredibly lucky for that. The hardships mostly were my own internal fears more than anything real. So I was very worried about being read or being in physical danger when I was out. That was a huge concern for me, but as I started living full time and realized that people weren't paying attention to me, I was kind of invisible which is the way I like it, that fear subsided.

My divorce was like incredibly acrimonious and stressful and awful. So that was a real hardship. But I think that would have happened anyway, transition or not. So it did add stress but I don't think it was caused by the fact that I was trans. 

To get over the fear of interacting with people I said well what's the scariest thing I could do and I decided to take an improv course where I would have to interact spontaneously with people up close. And I loved it was awesome. And so that was a huge joy, discovering this part of life that I really liked. And just being able to be myself and have friends who knew me as myself was a huge joy. And the absence of the crushing gender dysphoria that I had experienced was amazing. That was like as if I’d had like a terrible terrible pain - chronic pain - all my life and it suddenly was lifted. It was amazing.

Well my cat gets me out of bed, so that's an easy one. I think my guiding principle in life is just to try to be good to other people and try to enjoy life as much as possible. If anything, the pandemic has shown that life can be very unpredictable. So you might as well make the best of it while you can. So I try to be positive. I try to have fun and enjoy my life and do things I like.

I’m lucky enough that I actually really enjoy my day job as well so that's a big positive. That hugely motivates me to get out of bed every morning. So my day job is, I’m a software developer. I actually didn't study that. I studied electrical engineering, but I wound up in software and I’ve been doing that for about 31 years I guess. For 19 years I owned my own company. We did anti-spam products and services and I grew it from just me to 12 people. I sold that company back in 2018. The market had changed and it just didn't look like there was much growth potential. And since then I’ve been doing contract, software development contracts for various other companies.

I don't know that I really had a clear picture of what it would be like when I when I started out. I knew a lot of trans people because I belonged to an organization called gender mosaic. So I saw all these different trans people and how their transitions had played out, and they were all pretty different. Some people had a very easy time of it, some people didn't. Some people were happy afterwards, some people were not for various reasons. So I didn't really know what to expect when I started out and I didn't have a clear picture. As it evolved I realized that I’m much happier. That's huge. I’m way happier now that I’ve transitioned. 

I also, it's funny, I started out wanting to be like super feminine presenting. I hated my voice so I actually took singing lessons to improve my range and try to get the pitch up and sound more feminine, but as I grew more comfortable in my transition I kind of stopped worrying about that. I realized you know what I’m happy in my life. This is who I am. If my voice betrays me then fine, I’m okay with that. I can live with it. Just because changing my voice drastically when I was speaking to people that I knew felt really really weird. I felt really strange doing that.

So to answer the original question what did I expect versus how did it turn out, I didn't really have many expectations but it's turned out for me really positively.

I don't dream about trends related stuff in the future anymore because I’m in a pretty good place as far as that goes. So basically I have opportunities for a couple of long-term contracts that I’ll actually find out about next week. So I’m hopeful I’ll get one of those. So that'll be my work life settled. I want to advance in comedy, like I have done paid comedy on a weekend at a club so I’m not totally amateur, but I’m nowhere near what you would consider professional or well-known, but I’d like to get better at comedy and kind of advance in that world as well. I’d like to travel. 

I have a partner. we have a very good relationship so I’d like to keep building that. I don't know that I’d ever want to get married again, but I do like being in a relationship with somebody.

What I would tell my 10 year old - 10 year ago self, would be get out of this marriage ASAP! It's toxic! So that's the first thing. And also, I would say to myself that, don't be so afraid of transitioning. It's not a leap off a cliff. It's not going to destroy your life, it's actually going to be a positive, so just have the courage to take that step.

I don't know what I tell myself 10 years from now, but I would say well I hope you had a good life and fun and did well in your work and your comedy and had a good relationship.

Trans people are at heart pretty much like everybody else. I don't think being trans is a mental illness. I don't believe that at all. I think it may well be a brain difference, but I don't think it's a defect. I think it's just a difference. And so I would want people to know that despite all the things in the news about how bad things are for trans people, and how much we suffer, which I’m not trying to minimize because all of that is true, there are a lot of trans people who are happy and leading productive, meaningful lives. And that doesn't get covered in the news because, you know, the news is "if it bleeds it leads" otherwise we're not interested. 

And I’d also want people to just chill on some of the hot button issues like just chill about the whole trans people and sports issue and the bathroom issues and all the cultural war issues that are going on. Because in reality those things are not a problem. Nobody dresses up as a woman to go into a woman's washroom to assault a woman. That's ridiculous. Just look at the reality. Look at the statistics and calm down.

So after I did improv I did quite a lot of improv for a few years. I decided to try stand-up comedy. I thought, well that's also performing and I really like performing. So I did stand-up comedy. About five years ago was my first set and I discovered I loved that even more than improv. The first time I got a laugh, it was a huge shot of adrenaline and endorphins, so I’ve been doing comedy not as a profession obviously, but as a hobby, for about five years, and I love it. I’ve done stand up in clubs all over Ottawa. I’ve done stand-up on zoom, so all over the world. And at first I didn't do trans-related material because I didn't know how people would react. I just did observational comedy. Then I decided to do trans-related material and it worked really well because I think when you do comedy about real things in your life you can make it much funnier. And in a sense being trans is kind of funny and weird. It's a lot of things, but it's also strange and funny. So I had a huge vein of material that I could mine for that.

And so I found people really enjoyed that. I had a lot of positive feedback about it. And I’m not really activist - you know I don't do - I support trans rights but I’m not really vocal about marching and that sort of thing. That's just not my personality. But I find that when you get a room full of people laughing with you who may not know a trans person - may never have met a trans person - they realized, hey this is... she's just like anyone else not some strange creature to be feared, but just like anyone else. And I think that actually goes a long way to helping trans visibility and helping people understand that we're just normal people with one slight difference.

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Meet Cash (He/Him)

What follows is a transcript from Cash's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/r7WsU450a0g

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So, my name is Cash and I am 28 years old from Northern Ontario. I’m currently a student at Algoma University and I’m completing my fourth year Bachelor of Honors in - sorry Bachelor of Arts, Honors in Sociology and Law and Justice combined. After graduation I’m hoping to pursue a master's degree in criminology. 

So, I identify as a transgender man. I lean a little bit more towards more of a non-binary kind of presentation. I go by the pronouns he/him. I’m okay with they/them as well. Like I don't really kind of plan around my identity too much, with the exception of, you know, I do prefer to present more masculine. That's always been something that I’ve been most comfortable with, kind of my whole life growing up, I always found that anything that was overly feminine presentation wise was uncomfortable to me. But in terms of interest it's anywhere from sports to crafting and kind of everything in between basically. 

Where I feel stuck is, like feeling like there has to be a binary. Like I have to be - I have to pick a category, kind of in order to be recognized. And that's definitely something I’m still working on because when someone says they/them, I love it, because I’m like yes! Like you've got it! Like no. When they say he/him, like that's fine too. Like I’m fine with either one, but sometimes I’ll be like, you know, I’m going to tell someone, like, I’m a man and it's like, that doesn't feel right either. Like you know,I want to present, I want to do you know, everything that makes me comfortable, masculinity wise kind of presentation wise. But, like, when it comes to, you know, people talking about men or talking about what it means to be kind of CIS men, CIS male, I think there's so much work to be done in that area that, you know, if I can try to help kind of shape that differently I would like to but I also think that what makes me more comfortable is non-binary, you know, claiming that. Claiming non-binary. And being allowed to claim that even though I want to present masculine because I think that's where a lot of people struggle. It's like well I can't be non-binary if I’m more feminine, or more masculine. I think that's kind of what we have to get away from, is the labeling of kind of what you have to do, what you can do, or what you should not do in terms of your gender and being transgender or and what not. I think that's that's where we do a lot of damage. 

So when it came to kind of discovering or learning to basically understand my gender I would say I was really young when I knew that, you know, female presentation and description wasn't for me but at the same time I didn't really have the words to express that. Growing up there was never any familiarity, there was never any like awareness essentially of what transgender meant. And definitely not what non-binary meant, so to me it never really made sense. But as I was growing up my mom was very, you know, she had the one daughter so she definitely wanted me to be you know her daughter, her princess. You know because of her occupation, she's in the beauty industry, so she liked me to do my makeup and my hair and you know, have the pretty feminine kind of clothing happening. I was never comfortable with that. I did express it but you know my mom did the best she can with what she knew right? I don't think that she had any kind of understanding or you know familiarity either no exposure to what transgender really meant. 

It wasn't until I kind of got into my I would say early 20s that I was really... there was more representation in general, but especially in the media, for transgender individuals. So I know that initially I came out as bisexual. That kind of made sense to me that's kind of still how I would I would say I identify. It's either you know bisexual or queer basically. I find queer be a little bit more all-encompassing. But yeah so from there I had actually, I was watching... I think I was just watching something on MTV. I think it was catfish or something like that and I was introduced to IO Tillett Wright, and he now has come out and identifies as transgender and at the time I believe that his pronouns were they/them. It kind of made sense to me kind of in that moment. I was like oh there's there's someone else out there who identifies kind of in the middle, for lack of a better word. I still didn't know what it meant to be non-binary. At that time I was, I want to say 20, 23 around there, so from there I kind of just started looking more into like the queer community in general and kind of what it meant. I started with Instagram. I slowly kind of you know started with the stereotypical lesbian Instagram, and from there I was introduced to transgender men and that was the first time in my entire life that I had heard of a transgender man that I had you know seen right in front of me that another transgender man existed.

So I started following those accounts and kind of as I seen those individuals be comfortable with themselves and you know the before and after pictures were a really big thing. You know because how I always felt was that I didn't present I guess masculine enough that maybe I was too feminine prior that maybe I can't possibly be a transgender man. You know if I was that binary I guess, that bound to femininity. So being able to see that you know so many other transgender men had had that same kind of level of femininity and still you know realized who they were authentically, like their authentic selves, move forward with the transition. And that's kind of how I became comfortable with it and realized that it fit me. You know it was there all along just that you know I didn't have the words to express it. My parents definitely didn't.

So I came out kind of to the first person I would say more more privately would have been summer of 2016. And then by early 2017 I was you know more out to more people and I had come out at my college. You know I still hadn't gone through like a haircut or anything like that. I was going by Cash at that time. My pronouns were still she/her and so yeah like reflecting back on that time, that was a really difficult time. There was a lot of mistakes made that I definitely wish that I could go back on differently and definitely there was a lot of emotional pain that I caused other people that you know was not intentional at the time. Reflecting back those decisions absolutely should have been different, but it was a really difficult time when you're trying to figure out who you are and how you integrate into society as who you want to be. And then kind of casually as I just you know lived my life and moved forward, I was able to you know... the college situation didn't work out, so I went to to the university and that's where I really thrived. That's where I definitely grew. So yeah I credit a lot of it to that and being able to be who I am and learn more about gender and sexuality, what it means, you know how to construct it differently, how to deconstruct what I already knew, what I had already learned. 

So I was able to grow grow in that manner so that's definitely been definitely a positive for me and I was able you know through that experience you know with those individuals supporting me and helping me through that process that I was able to realize you know hormones are what I wanted, top surgery was not only what I wanted, but definitely what I needed and I was able to pursue those avenues, not easily, so yeah that was kind of my navigation through the actual transition part of it, from social transition moving into physical transition. 

I think the biggest thing that stands out to me right now that I’m still struggling with is how to feel comfortable in the body that I have, because unfortunately you can't change everything, right? So I’m not sure if it's entirely possible, I hope it is, but I’m not sure it's entirely possible to get your body to a point where every single thing fits the narrative that you've been taught, that you've been socialized to understand as masculine. So you know I look in the mirror and I still see my hips and I’m like you know those are not man hips. And I look at my hands and I think, okay those are too feminine. And so it's kind of working through not necessarily how to always change all of that to fit my idea, but kind of how to construct my knowledge today, my current knowledge, with the idea that it's okay that not every single part of my body fits some sort of predetermined criteria for masculinity. And that it's okay to still you know perform my gender you know, live my authentic self in a way that head to toe doesn't have to match just for every single aspect of my body. And also at the same time learning to understand for myself but also when it comes to representation and when you're having you know when there's dialogue about what it means to be transgender is that you don't have to undergo surgery or take hormones to qualify for lack of a better word as a category within transgender right you don't have to have top surgery, to have you know your chest tissue removed in order to be considered a valid trans man or someone who is able to navigate their life in a way that they want to use he/him pronouns and you know they don't want facial hair. Whatever body part or aspect of their body they're still comfortable with they are still transgender man. They are still he/him. They are masculine. 

I do think what we need a little bit more work on is kind of making sure that we're validating people's gender the way that they think that it fits them rather than how we see it based on what we've been taught and how we've been socialized into that. Because I think that puts a lot of pressure on people to kind of meet some sort of standard that can be really damaging, I think, if they don't have the means or even just the you know internal comfort level to pursue that. 

So when it comes to coming out, I think the concept of coming out is a difficult one because I think a lot of people are under the impression that you come out once and then you're done, and I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately it's not, so I would say that being able to you know come out initially there was that huge weight that was kind of off my chest, off my shoulders. It was like, okay, I can do this now. People know. You feel like it kind of gives you the room internally, emotionally, mentally, to process what it means to do something different gender wise. We like to think that we all have the same experience growing up, that we all have the same encounters and the same you know just general living environments but the world is a big place and and you know, different countries have different challenges and you know different hurdles, so coming out is definitely complex. It sometimes feels like a goal for people feeling that way it's like I have to come out. And how it changes your life I think is what you have to consider. There's undoubtedly good. I don't have any regrets with coming out. You know it's kind of an if I could go back thing, of course I would do things differently along the way, I would make better choices, I would you know factor in the people around me and how my choices and my words and the things that I say and do, what will impact them. But I think I kept myself at the forefront, and that was what I had to do and I think to some extent that's what I still have to do, by being cognizant of the fact that there are different people in my life with different needs and I try to manage that. 

So I was diagnosed with depression, kind of clinically, at 12. You know I look at a 12 year old right now and I can't fathom that. That is just so young. So I grew up you know I went through my teen years, my first puberty as I call it, very depressed and angry a lot of despair, and not not knowing why. In hindsight I know why, but not really understanding that. 

So there came a point where I didn't think I was gonna graduate elementary school, and then that happened. And I didn't think I was gonna make it to the other side of high school, and then that happened. And I would always reflect forward. and people would you know they kind of ask where do you think he'll be in five years, and I could never really come to terms that I would really survive.

You know, that's kind of the reality of deep depression I think, is that you don't really see your future the way that you would like to think that people should be able to see into their future. So yeah, before I came out there was definitely no comprehending a successful future, better yet like a happy one. So there's that kind of freedom that comes with coming out. And like I said, there's definitely loss. I can't say that I would undo what I’ve lost in order to go back to who I was. Like I wouldn't go and back and say well you know if I could just go back and have all these people back... definitely not, because that just undoes the work that I’ve done to myself to to get somewhere in my life where I can move forward and be successful and happy, and with my goals at least to help other people also feel happy and comfortable in themselves.

The depression doesn't go away. It's not that easy, that takes a lot of work. A lot of things to work through. But it's definitely to a point where you can for me at least I can visualize a future that exists basically. 

The future that I envisioned for myself now is someone who is confident enough and comfortable enough with themselves that they can go forward and make meaningful change even just on a small scale. You know, I’m not out to change the world. I don't think any one human being is you know... it's not possible for one human being to do that. I think that takes a very large collective. You know, collective societies are what make change possible. 

So I think my goal is just to be part of a collective society that moves forward making meaningful, positive change that doesn't result in anyone's further oppression. 

It's important to kind of take your own experiences and at least, you know, you have your hardships and everything that I’ve gone through, to get to this point, that I kind of want to do something with it, that I can get at least one other person feeling, you know, confident in themselves and happy and like they can have their own future. 

You know social research is an area that I become really interested in through my university, through my education. As I was going through my own research project that I need to obtain my honors degree bachelor of arts and honors, I love it. And I think that it can, you know, all it can do is kind of build one more stepping stone that we have towards getting some sort of change, even on a... again like I said on a small scale, especially, you know, I grew up in Northern Ontario. I’m still here. So my research was with local law enforcement how, we can do better training with the LGBTQ+ community, and ensuring that you know institutions that were kind of built on oppression and founded in the nature of marginalization and othering, that were holding them accountable by saying, hey you know what this our experience this is what we need from you. This is how you can work with us. How we can work together to do it. So my research kind of helped highlight the areas that we need some work, and the next step is kind of how do we do that, and how do we move forward with that so that it becomes kind of standard, so that we don't ever have to you know look at institutions such as policing and think well I wonder if they even know what transgender is? Or will they even understand when I tell them these are my pronouns? That's something that I think like, kind of those basics is where we need to start. So the research that I’ve done personally kind of revealed a starting point. 

I do think that's that's based on location, definitely for sure. Again, Northern Ontario is so kind of secluded, not the most secluded in Canada, but definitely away from a lot of resources and representation in general. You know you go down to Toronto, even Ottawa and there's so much more visibility in general, and I think with visibility comes knowledge. So being kind of out of the way like we are down here is, well up here I guess, is difficult. And that's right from you know Sudbury to Sault Ste Marie. I think Thunder Bay is working on stuff but again they're still quite north, so they're you know... They have a larger population so they can move forward a little bit but there's a lot of barriers to that when everything is so central in the core and our core is Toronto, so... 

Sometimes it just feels like it's so big because again I think sometimes we come into it thinking that we have to reach some sort of milestone or you know there's some sort of end to the journey kind of transgender and I don't think there is, because I think society changes too fast. Things change too fast. You know a journey is just that. There's not often a destination. I don't know if I would want there to be a destination because I think that would be boring. I think we would stop growing I think, in you know becoming better as a society if there was some sort of you know "you've reached it" type of destination. So I think that's the same with gender. I mean we want to evolve it in a way that everyone feels valid and feels like they can be who they are. So I think we just have to be open to and willing to kind of guide people on their journey without making them feel like you know they have to reach a destination to be successful to be happy and authentic.

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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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