First of all, full disclosure: I’m American by birth but was raised in Canada by my Canadian mother and her British-born husband (hence my love for Monty Python). I grew up there, I went to school there, I even served in their military for 10 years (more on that later). But even though I loved Canada, I never felt at home. There was always this nagging feeling of “I’m an American, goddammit!” and even though my black, jazz musician father had split from our lives when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I always wanted to know more about his experiences of living in America. He left in the 70’s and moved to Europe where his music was more accepted (“America, love it or leave it? See ya” he always used to say).
I moved to the US from Vancouver in 2009 after Obama won the election, and when Bushism was thoroughly repudiated by the nation. I thought America had finally come to its senses and had cast off the yoke of Republican rule.
Boy was I wrong.
I started transitioning in 2012 while living in Berkeley after the intense feeling of gender dysphoria became too difficult to ignore. What really pushed me over the edge was seeing this speech given by one of the directors of my favorite movie of all time, The Matrix:
I watched that speech several times and I cried. And cried. And cried some more. Here was someone whom I had previously looked up to as a talented director laying herself bare and describing her own life experience as a closeted transgender woman. This was MY experience she was talking about. All the shame, all the hiding, all the fear, all the suicidal thoughts. All of it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, that someone so famous and talented was also transgender.
After that I couldn’t get enough. I started finding all kinds of YouTube videos of transgender people talking about their experiences with transitioning, lots of before/after videos, etc. Of course most were stunningly gorgeous so that gave me a slightly skewed version of reality. But it was enough because the prevailing message was just how HAPPY they were. Happy to be living authentically, happy to be FREE of that burning itch that could never be scratched, happy to finally be WOMEN, at long last.
Because that’s what being trans is like. It’s like having a burning itch inside of you that constantly scratches at your brain, nagging at you to scratch it, driving you slowly crazy until you make the final, fateful decision that everything has led you to:
Transition, or suicide.
I had it all planned out already. I had chosen the place. I had determined the methodology. I would drive down the I-80 near Emeryville and veer my car into the supports that held up the pedestrian bridge that crossed the freeway. I would make it look like an accident. But it would be final. It would be all over. I would be free, at last.
***
All my life I tried to be male. Nobody knew about the internal anguish that I was living with. Growing up I hated team sports but in college discovered rock climbing, and I threw myself into that activity as far as one could throw themselves. I competed. I climbed multi-pitch routes in Yosemite. I climbed overhangs in Arizona. I had climbing friends and community. I RAGED IT on the wall at the climbing gyms in my city. My life revolved around climbing. As a distraction, it turned out. Because when I was up there, hanging off my fingernails facing the next move on a 5.12a, nothing else mattered. The intensity of focus, the skill, the determination not to fall and face failure, the ability to look DEATH in the face. It all appealed to me. Yes there were women but it was still a male-dominated sport at the time. It was the first time I was actually good at something and it really mattered to me. However, this was before I took my Combat Leadership Course where I would really be tested.
I joined the Army when I was 20. It was a Reserve unit and I was still in University, but the idea of having steady employment really appealed to me. But the real reason why I joined was so that I could receive “Man training”. My stepfather always believed that I was weak, a sissy, uncoordinated, and nerdy. And boy he let me know it. He was English so he was raised in the strict educational system of a post-war nation where you had to be tough, or by God they would beat it into you. He tried to make a man out of me but I resisted his efforts. There was always conflict growing up, as I rebelled against his strict control over me. Finally in college I left the nest.
But the world is a cold and cruel place for those of us who don’t fit in. And if I was going to fit in, then I needed some help. One of my best friends had joined the Army Reserve a year previous and told me all about it. It sounded like a fun experience so I went down to the Recruiting Office and signed up. I ran the aptitude test and they told me I could pick any trade I wanted. I chose “Communications and Electronics” because I was a nerd and wanted to play with the cool tech. I became a “Radio/Teletype Operator R214” and shipped off to Camp Vernon for General Military Training (Basic) a few months later. And that’s where I learned what I was made of.
What I discovered there was just how wrong my stepfather was. I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t a sissy. I may have been a tall, skinny kid but I was STRONG. I persevered. I shot two-inch groupings with our service weapon, the C7 rifle (same as the M16A2 but with full auto). I never fell out during ruck marches or PT. I never flinched whenever my drill instructors screamed in my face. For eleven weeks it was the same routine: up at 0530, PT, inspections, drill training, classroom training, more inspections, dress and deportment, weapons training, field training, and even more inspections. All designed to break you down and weed out those who could not or would not “switch on”. I passed Basic, earned my cap badge, and went on to take my QL3 Radio Course, which I passed easily. Of the new recruits at my unit, I was the only one that stuck it out and I ended up serving 10 years in the end.
Several years later one of my NCO’s recommended I sign up for Combat Leadership Course. It nearly broke me. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, and of the 30 candidates that started it, only 9 of us passed. We learned how to be drill instructors, how to be classroom instructors, how to lead infantry section attacks, how to lead small party taskings, how to lead recce (reconnaissance) patrols, and TONS of PT. It was a grueling 8 weeks of intense NCO training and sheer misery after which we shipped off to CFB Petawawa north of Ottawa, Ontario for a 10 day Final Training Exercise just as winter hit and a foot of snow had just fallen.
Ten days of sheer hell and misery. Ten days of snow, frozen rain, slush, mud, ice, getting bumped in the middle of the night by enemy force, digging trenches, leading recce patrols, leading section assaults, fire and movement, escape and evasion, all while being evaluated by our course instructors. Canadian winters are no joke and our candidates were dropping like flies due to sleep deprivation, sickness, and injuries. One of our candidates, an Air Force Corporal was literally buried alive when her trench collapsed and we had to dig her out from a six foot deep trench (she survived and topped the course in the end).
But through it all I persevered. I passed the course and became an NCO at my unit a few months later. They gave me a radio detachment and crew to command, and I became the best leader that I could be. I served with the Infantry, the Armoured Corps, the MP’s, and the Combat Engineers, being flown around the country on various exercises and support missions. Eventually I went back to Kingston and became a Radio Course instructor and stood out because of my leadership style.
And It. Was. Awesome.
I was so focused on my job that I managed to suppress the “itch”. The longing to be a woman. To express my feminine side. My true self.
***
To be continued