Meet Madison (She/Her)

What follows is a transcript from Madison's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/0Oy38CL_Zm0

_____________________________________

Hi, my name is Madison Poser, I'm 29 years old. My pronouns are she her. I work as a graphic designer and I am a proud transgender woman. 

Back in 2017, I was working as a graphic designer at a firm in town, and I had just lost my job and my girlfriend had just broken up with me all within like the span of a week. And so I started hanging out with my friends, Alexi, who was also unemployed at the time, so we both had a lot of free time on our hands. And if the topic came up about like gender and she had asked me if I might be transgender after I had told her about some of my desires to like wear women's clothing and how I think about it all the time, wanting to be a woman. And it took my friend asking me if I'm transgender for me to realize. That that was a possibility. Up until that point, I hadn't even considered it. 

So my friend Alexi would actually help me with shopping for women's clothing, and she helped me try on makeup and all these other feminine things. Any time I go over to her apartment, I'd get to dress up as my true self. And it was like so amazing and it made me so happy. And she would refer to me by she/her pronouns and by the name that I had chosen, which was Emma originally, because I thought it was funny, because it went with Emma Poser. It was kind of like a pun. I'm a poser, Emma Poser. So that was initially why I chose that name. But then after some time, I decided to go with Madison because I didn't want my name to be a joke my entire life. 

So, yeah, we would go shopping at thrift stores and anywhere I could find some cheap used women's clothing because I wasn't employed at the time and I would starting out, just stick to her like glue. I was terrified of being seen in the women's clothing section. But over time, it started to get easier and easier. I'd start to stray further and further away.

Eventually, I just went shopping by myself. I bought a dress by myself. And it was so like empowering. I immediately drove home and I dressed up and felt amazing for the rest of the day. It was very empowering. Yeah, there's lots of like moments, like hurdles, I guess that when you pass them, you just feel like a sense of pride in yourself. 

The first few challenges that I faced when I was first coming out, I would say were my parents. The first time that I tried on nail polish, which was like one of the first things I sort of experimented with, I came home with it on my hands and my dad saw. And his reaction wasn't the reaction I would have expected.

My entire life growing up, I thought my parents would both be like super supportive if I ever came out as gay or whatever. And so I wasn't like too worried initially. But as soon as my dad saw that, I had nail polish on. And his reaction that made me really scared to come out to him. 

I was more comfortable coming out to my mom, I actually came out to my mom pretty early on. We were both down at the dock out at our cottage, and it was just me and her. And I just started out the conversation by asking her if she knew anyone who was transgender. And she actually said yes. One of your relatives, distant relatives who lives in Sault St. Marie, is actually transgender, a trans woman.

I didn't even know they were my relative. I had never met them before. Like they were distant relative. I had met that relative like about a year later at a trans coffee meet up here in the city. And it was just really great getting to meet them. And I thought that was so cool. 

And she then asked me, why, why do you bring that up? And and then I just sort of said, well, I've been experimenting with my gender or questioning my gender a little bit. And I'm considering the fact that I may be transgender. And so that's sort of how I came out to my mom. And she was, she got fairly quiet. Yeah, sure. She wasn't sure how to process that because she wasn't expecting it. Obviously, I hid it pretty well. But over time, she she became one of my biggest supporters. And it's actually why I changed my middle name to my mom's first name. 

While I was working as a graphic designer, I didn't actually come out. I was working at an organization here in town, and that was when they had let me go. And that was when I started to experiment. But I was still working sort of freelance for them. Still going by my old name and pronouns, and I just wasn't out yet to anyone for my old job. And then I got a job offer in Ottawa for a two month contract, so I decided to go down there. I accepted that job offer and I still wasn't out. But my brother lived in Ottawa, so I saw that as an opportunity to come out to him while I was down there, because I actually lived with my brother while I was working in Ottawa. Him and his girlfriend, about a month into my contract, 

I had been continuously trying to like pump myself up to come out to my brother, and I just kept putting it off. And then one day I was at the house with his girlfriend and we were just like in the kitchen cooking something. And I decided to come out to her first because I realized that it would be good for my brother to have somebody to talk to who wasn't me about this after I've come out to him. So I came out to my brother's girlfriend and she was super supportive and she said she honestly wasn't worried about my brother reacting negatively, which really put my mind at ease. So it made a lot easier to come out to him.

One night I was just was sitting with my brother in the living room, we were playing Mario Kart and. I told them I had something important, I wanted to tell him, and I told them that I had been questioning my gender. I had this little script that I used for pretty much everybody where I'd say and I've been questioning my gender for the last few months, and I've come to the conclusion that I would be happier living my life as a woman. If you have any questions, I can answer them. I know you're going to need some time to process, but I just want you to know that things won't change too much between us. So so I pretty much told him that. 

And he he was supportive right away. He gave me a big hug, told me he'd be there for me, and that meant the world to me. So I've always sort of looked up to my brother. 

In March of 2017, that was when I first started experimenting with my gender, and then several months went by. Around August, I met with a doctor who was able to sort of help me with getting hormone replacement therapy and explaining everything about transition to me. January 17th, 2018, was the day that I started hormone replacement therapy. So it was less than a year since I realized that I was transgender, that I started transitioning.

And it was February of 2017 that I started my new job at the graphic design firm in Ottawa. I wasn't out socially at that time. I still wasn't really very feminine. And my voice was very deep. My hair was very short and actually falling out. I was like kind of going bald at the time, like early, early baldness, which was kind of terrifying. But the hormones did their work, which was which was a relief. So it actually took me a while to come out and start presenting as a woman in public.

It wasn't until I started going to school for business at Sault College, and actually my first time presenting as a woman out in the public space was at a destination wedding in Mexico. When the bride and the groom, I came out to them a couple of months before I actually went to the wedding. And they said, they encouraged me, to be myself for the wedding and wear a dress and makeup and all the other good stuff. So I did that. It was terrifying. Walking from my hotel room down to the foyer where the rest of the guests were was like the longest walk I'd ever taken.

But I had my friend Alexi there. Thankfully, she really helped me get through it. And she was like always by my side. I mean, just encouraging me and keeping me sane. So one of the biggest highs that I've ever gotten being trans was the moment that I looked in the mirror and saw a woman looking back at me. That was like the the greatest moment. And I knew that everything was going to be perfect. Everything was going to be all right. 

So there's lots of great things about being trans and being a part of this great community. The LGBT community and the trans community was one of them. I got to meet so many amazing people and they were all so supportive. Early on, I was introduced to several trans people who helped me figure out who I am and help squash any doubts I may have had about being trans and really just supported me. And I returned the favor for others trying to support them and explain to them. Sort of the same thing, answer questions and be supportive. 

So I've had some people ask me on social media, they would message me on Instagram, and most of the questions I would get are. How do I come out to people? Or like, I'm scared of coming out to people, How did you do it? And I would actually send them the little script that I had written out that I used for coming out to friends and family. 

A lot of the other questions I would get are people who just have doubts about their feelings about being trans. Where they are worried that it's just a phase or something, and I'm able to tell them that these feelings are natural. A lot of trans women have doubts. Trans men as well have these doubts. I had doubts early on as well, in the end. I'm so much happier living life as a woman and being seen as a woman and presenting as a woman. And that sort of has made me realize that I'm meant to be a woman. 

I find myself quite fortunate to be passing as a CIS. Several people have been surprised when I tell them that I'm transgender and I will never hide that fact. I try not to hide that fact. I wear pride pins and I'm very open about my transition because I find that visibility and exposure for people really helps them sort of understand what being transgender is all about, and it helps them accept it and support. And that was the case with my dad, who was not very comfortable with the whole thing early on. But as time went by, as he started to see me more and more as a woman, makeup, wearing dresses and skirts, all this other stuff, he started to come around and really understand sort of what I was going through and that this wasn't just a phase. 

I've had to remind myself several times during the pandemic that I need to provide self care for myself. Putting on makeup, even if I'm not going out, can really improve my mood. So reminding myself, even if I'm staying at home, laying in bed all day.

One of the things I would tell myself if I could go back in time would be to start applying for the surgery funding right away, because it can take a while. And you may not think you're ready right away and you don't have to be ready right away. I waited about a year before I actually applied for any surgery, and then it took almost another year for it to get approved and go through. Even if you're just starting out, but you know that you're transgender and you may want to get a surgery in the future, you should apply for it sooner. Even if you're not ready for it, because you can always cancel you don't have to go through with it if you don't feel like you want to. 

I would really love to travel. I want to see more of Canada. I've actually been considering traveling, doing a road trip along the East Coast or the West Coast and just sort of seeing what's out there and potentially finding a new place for me to move to and live, because I've lived in Sault St. Marie and I love Sault St. Marie. It's a great city. But I've lived here my entire life, and I feel like there's something else out there for me. So I really want to travel and I would love to continue to help with Pride Fest here in the city, because I became a committee member for Pride back in twenty eighteen, and I've been doing graphic design work for them. 

We created these lawn signs last year and this year, which were a big hit, and I redesigned their logo. So really just like continuing to be a part of the community and giving back. I definitely want to want to continue that. That trail. 

I would say the best bit of wisdom I can provide from my own experience transitioning is to just have patience, have patience in yourself, have patience in others. Other people may need more time to get used to the changes, and everybody transitions differently. It's a different pace for everybody. So don't feel discouraged if your transition isn't going quite as quickly as others because you'll get there.

_________________________________

Support The Trans Canada Project

https://www.transcanadaproject.ca

https://www.patreon.com/transcanadaproject

Meet Heidi (they/them/she/her)

What follows is a transcript from Heidi's video, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/qr7XEG6XefY

_____________________________________

My English name Is Heidi. My traditional name has to do with the medicines of the maple tree. I'm from Curve Lake First Nation and I am bear clan. I work for Nogojiwanong friendship center as the indigenous mentor for our 2SLGBTQ+ people.

I have to say I'm very proud of my community my chief and my council. We're holding our second pride in our community but It's our first week-long pride welcoming everybody back into the circle. We have a week-long festivity of events, and we welcome anybody out. It's been absolutely fantastic seeing all these pride flags and signs being flown in our community.

I Identify as being a two-spirit person. I use the pronouns they/them/she/her. I've got grandchildren. They call me kokum, I'm kokum and noki. Noki to my three biological grandchildren, kokum to three grandchildren that have adopted me as their kokum. I knew fairly young, but I still had gotten married because that's what we were supposed to do. I married a man and honestly there's nothing I would change about that because I have my three beautiful children that I had, and my grandchildren, so still I wouldn't change anything with that. But it was hard growing up.

Especially at my age, I know that I look younger than I am, which Is fairly deceiving - I'm fairly lucky from my mother that way, my mom modeled for kodak so my mom's a very beautiful woman - but when I when I came out to my mom, I had been seeing my partner for probably a year. But I had already been dating before that. But when I met my partner, I knew they were the one and I came out to my mom. It was funny because my mom was sitting in my kitchen, and I said it to her and then I started to go down the stairs to the basement. At that time, I smoked cigarettes and the only place we'd smoke in the basement where the wood stove was; you open the wood stove, the smoke would blow out. So, I came out to my mom that way and my mom says, oh I already knew. I've known since you were about 12. so why didn't you say something to me?

My mom's been absolutely fantastic, very supportive. I've been very lucky that way. My children are absolutely supportive. I've been lucky that way.

At school I think people knew but didn't say anything because I was that type of person that if people were getting into a fight, I got in there and stopped It. People didn't mess with me in school but then again, I was also 5’ 11” then, mind you I was about 119 pounds, but I played hockey. I was into the sports. I played ball, I did all that stuff and people just didn't mess with me In school. But I wasn't out to people then either. And It was weird because I picked up on who also was possibly gay but not out. And one of my really good friends happened to be one of them.

I didn't have - it wasn't as much of a hard time when I was younger, other than that I did go, and I was doing what society thinks we should do by somebody born with female genitalia; to marry a man and then to have kids and I did all that. No, I wouldn't change any of that because my kids are my world to me, they're also, you learn something every day and that's part of my learning.

I know that as I was getting older and still with my ex-husband, having that hard time with that relationship, after my son passed away, I saw it as life's too short. And he wasn't always the kindest person, my ex. So, when we finally separated and I started dating, I met my now partner of 12 years. I'm very happy.

I worked In the Anishinabek Police Service for 17 years and most of that was while I was with my ex-husband, so nothing was out there. Even for the first few years of my husband and I being separated and my partner and I being together nothing was said In that police force. Not that I would have had an overly big Issue In the police service but It was how community would react as well. And from what you see with all the signs and stuff for our pride with the community, we have very many members in our community that are identifying as two spirit LGBTQ.

But yeah, when I got into construction, that was the biggest thing. Not letting It out there for safety reasons. But I left that job with construction to become an indigenous mentor for 2SLGBTQ+ people with Nogojiwanong friendship center. I took an over $20 000 pay cut to do It, but I wanted to help support, and get supports for our people that are having those issues. Too many leave their homes and they become part of that MMIW2S (Missing and Murdered Women, Girls and 2-Spirit People). It shouldn't be that way. Our two spirited people were always accepted they were highly regarded In our communities and we needed to get back to that.

So by taking on that position I did with Nogojiwanong friendship center It was to help bring back that ceremony to our two-spirited LGBTQ blessed people. That we all sit in that circle together. It's the way it always was. All the people whether they're red, yellow, black, or white, that circle we have, that medicine wheel we have, is that we all sit on the same level in that circle. And our two-spirited people could sit anywhere in that circle in our ceremonies. We didn't have, we didn't gender our people. We didn't even have words for he or she before colonization.

We would have, basically some of the ceremonies, one of them is like the basket and the bow; that child with rights of passage, instead of gendering that child, that child went into that ceremony, went into that lodge, and they chose either that basket or that bow on what their spirit was leading them to, what their gifts were not what the genitalia they were born with. and with what they came out with Is what their responsibilities were.

Myself being a two-spirited person I would have a hard time choosing because I have that male and that female spirit. And I would have wanted that basket and that bow, not that I was being greedy, but because I assume both those responsibilities. Our two-spirited people are seen to be people that walk in both worlds. We walk in that spirit world, and we walk on mother earth. We're able to communicate between the two.

And my big thing is getting all the communities to do the same thing, all our first nations communities to bring that acceptance back, go back to the ways we use to have. We didn't turn our people away. We didn't turn anybody away. We accepted them for who they were, those gifts they had to offer to the community. And by our pride flag that we've done in our community says we all belong in the circle and that's just it. It's getting everybody back into that circle, that healing's not going to happen until everybody's accepted. Everybody's back in that circle.

We have skirt shaming, so if you're born with female genitalia, it seemed that you’re to wear skirt to ceremony. We didn't always have skirts. Why would we assume somebody must wear that for ceremony? You're talking to creator. You're bringing those ancestors into that ceremony. They don't see what you're wearing. It shouldn't matter what you're wearing.

And why does that have to be part of acceptance? let people be who they are and love them for who they are. For so many of our young ones that's why they leave. They don't feel they're accepted in their communities. They go missing. And If our communities accepted them more for who they are, then they wouldn't be leaving we wouldn't be losing these children.

We not only did not have words for he or she before, but we don't have words for goodbye either It's "baamaapii" until we meet again.

Miigwach (thank you).

_________________________________

Support The Trans Canada Project

https://www.transcanadaproject.ca

https://www.patreon.com/transcanadaproject

Meet Dianne (she/her)

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

_____________________________________

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.

_________________________________

Support The Trans Canada Project

https://www.transcanadaproject.ca

https://www.patreon.com/transcanadaproject