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The clock hit midnight, or 0000 hours in military. We raised our glasses of non-alcoholic champaign and clinked our glasses.
“Happy new year, Captain,”
“Happy new year, Master Corporal.”
“Happy new year, Private.”
“Happy new year, Master Corporal.”
Then we all breathed a sigh of relief. The world didn’t end at that moment, computers didn’t crash as they rolled over to zero like the “experts” said they would, life would go on, and all was well. I was the Det Commander of the CommCen in the newly opened 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group’s HQ on the old Currie Barracks at CFB Calgary. We were tasked with providing vital communications back to Ottawa just in case Y2K actually came true. For most of the night we had been sitting in an office passing fake “canned traffic” back and forth to ensure that our lines weren’t down and that comms were intact.
Meanwhile my friends partied.
“I’ve gotta get out of this chickenshit outfit,” I thought to myself as I raised my glass to the OC (Officer Commanding).
At that point I was in my third year of a very intensive Visual Communications program at our local art college. I had been parading less and less as my school commitments grew greater. My unit recognized this and instead of assigning me to Radio Troop, which meant being in the field regularly, they had assigned me to HQ Troop, which meant being in garrison all the time. I was literally trying to juggle both worlds and it was really beginning to take a toll on me. Unlike University, where I could bring a textbook on exercise and read it in the middle of the night while on radio shift, VC assigns hands-on projects and requires you to present them in front of the class. Slacking off was not an option.
I asked for a leave of absence, but they refused. The Army had been my life for so many years, had been my identity even when I was on Civvie Street and in college. But a few months later I walked into my Sergeant Major’s office and declared my intention for a formal release. I was done. Ten years of service was over with the stroke of a pen.
Art College was amazing, however. I had already finished seven years of University, received my Bachelor of Science with a double major in Psychology and Physical Geography, but I knew that I was an artist deep down. I never took any art classes in school since my stepfather insisted I take academics and none of those bullshit “basketweaving” courses that would never serve you later in life. I never took a music course in my life because my mother was afraid that I would turn into my jazz musician father and be an abusive womanizer that was never home to help raise me. I tried majoring in Computer Science because I wanted to be a computer animator, but in 1987 that meant taking Calculus, Linear Algebra, and lots and lots of coding.
So I majored in Psychology instead. Because I wanted to know what the hell this itch that had been a part of my life for so long was all about. I discovered the Medical Library on campus and in my spare time researched everything I could about transsexualism (as they called it back then). I read all the case reports from doctors, from psychologists, therapists, you name it. Everything I could get my hands on. It was all so clinical, so medical, so scientific. But it all resonated with me. I had my answer.
But there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
It was still the 80’s. Gay rights hadn’t been recognized yet, gay bashing was still a thing, and Calgary was still full of rednecks. Staying in the closet was a matter of survival at that point. At that time you could count the famous trans pioneers on one hand. Renee Richards, Caroline Cossey (aka Tula), Christine Jorgensen, Lilli Elbe. All names I knew. All stories I’d read about or seen in the media. But not a path that I could walk because of the shame that had been placed upon me by my parents.
The shame. The “problem”. The thing that made me abnormal in their eyes.
But by then I was beginning to discover who I was. And even though I didn’t play an instrument, music became my life, my escape. I had a hunger, a passion for alternative and early electronic music at the time, so in my last year of High School I went down to the college radio station at University of Calgary and started volunteering. I had finally met my people.
College radio was a blast. By the time I was halfway through my first year at U of C, I had my own radio show. I became a fixture in the local music scene and always went to live shows whenever I could. I loved live music and ate it up, begging for more. But my true passion was electronic music. At that time the only thing I could get my hands on were bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, New Order, Jean Michel Jarré. I became the station’s electronic music expert and soon enough I was spinning early Industrial music like Front 242, Front Line Assembly, and Ministry, during the wee hours when I could get away with playing anything I wanted. Daytime radio had rules, like a certain amount of CanCon (Canadian Content) and playlists you had to follow. Not late night radio. I could bring in my friends, shoot the shit, talk about the music we loved. And I had a minor following.
Then I met Sabrina and she changed my life. She was literally the coolest person I had ever met, a fish out of water in ultra-conservative Calgary. We became really close friends and she was the first person that I felt comfortable enough to bare my soul. I told her my secret.
By then I had been crossdressing in secret. And as any trans person can tell you, crossdressing is the gateway drug for transgenderism. I had been shaving my legs, being secretly “femme”, but not telling ANYBODY about it. None of my guy friends knew, of course. How could they understand? How could anybody? I was alone.
But Sabrina changed all that. She introduced me to her really tall friend Rosie and that Halloween they dolled me up. They plucked my brows, dressed me in a slinky lavender colored latex dress, put a blonde wig on me, padded my hips, and that night we went out to The Warehouse, the local alternative music club that had the best Halloween parties in the city.
And dammit, I looked HOT. Like head-turningly hot. Like so hot people were asking me if I was a guy or a girl. At first I was nervous as hell to be seen in public like this, but as every trans person knows, Halloween is the time to let your freak flag fly. I could be free for one night per year and it. Was. EXHILARATING.
And yet, it still wasn’t enough. I could NEVER go full time. Are you kidding? I was still in the Army, for God’s sake! But the door was open, even though it was only a crack. I became obsessed with Halloween and even started going to local fetish parties. But it was still Calgary, a right-wing oil soaked city that spawned the likes of Ted Cruz and Stephen Harper. It may have been where I lived, but it was never home and I always dreamed of leaving for greener pastures. Maybe I would live in the US one day since I was a citizen by birth? But such thoughts were a fantasy at that time since I had an education to complete, and I knew that no dream could be achieved without an education.
So I stuck it out, got my Psych degree and went on to finish up my double major. I got my piece of paper, a pat on the back from my parents, and I was ready to embrace what the world had for me. I quickly got hired at a job digitizing utilities maps for peanuts, but I was truly a square peg in a round hole. They made us wear ties to work while we did monkey work in the basement of a small office building. It was at that point that I realized I didn’t really learn anything applicable in my seven years at Uni, and I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with my life.
But if there’s one thing you can say about me it’s that I’m a survivor. I had a backup plan and I signed up for as much full-time employment as the Army could hand me. Field exercises, deployments, training, teaching courses, whatever they had. And when I couldn’t do that, I worked at the University Students’ Union in their Facilities department running their Student Center. Manly stuff. Physical stuff.
But it was all a lie.
(To be continued)