'A safe place': Edmonton couple plans wedding as groom transitions

Marita Obst and Farrin van Graven are getting married. But marriage is not the only life-changing experience the Edmonton couple is going through.

Van Graven is also transitioning.

The 31-year-old apprentice electrician was born in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island with the name Amanda. 

He knew at a young age he wasn't a girl, he says. Members of his family recognized it, too.

In fact his step-grandmother noticed first, telling his stepmother when van Graven was four or five," he says.

"They're Indigenous, so two-spirited people are quite common and accepted. Her mother said, 'She definitely thinks she's a boy. She is a boy.'"

Van Graven has formally come out as trans to just a few people in his family. His stepmother "took it great," he says.

He's more concerned with other family members, particularly his mom's side.

While he has close friends who are trans, he says he wasn't comfortable about being trans himself when he first met Obst.

The couple met in Calgary on Tinder in March 2017. Obst was in midwifery school and van Graven had moved down from Edmonton to look for work after he completed a job at Rogers Place.

Obst, 32, says she didn't believe in whirlwind partnerships, but she was quickly proved wrong.

After a month or so, they were talking marriage. Soon after, they were moving back to Edmonton for Obst's job.

Up to the time they met, van Graven was living "in-between," and using they/them pronouns.

"I wasn't too concerned if someone gendered me as 'she,' " he says.

But within six months of being with Obst, van Graven was ready to take the next step.

"It wasn't a push, necessarily," he says. "It was more like … it's comfortable; it's safe to be you; it's a safe place."

For Obst, it was just the natural next step.

"I've always identified as queer and have loved many different types of people. When we first met — I don't mean to say this in a way that's like, 'I knew' — but I already knew.

"So it was just one of those things, 'Yeah, obviously, it would be great for you if you transitioned because it would be you being yourself.' "

While it's a relief for van Graven to start the journey, the long process hasn't been easy on him.

Van Graven got a referral to a doctor's clinic in March. "Saw him in July, waited for hormones, just got them two weeks ago. It was a very long process," he says. 

"I was already so tortured for so many years of my adulthood being in-between and confused and not ready, and then finally when I was, there were all these hoops and it was so hard to do."

Van Graven recalls cancelled appointments and gender groups facilitated by an addictions counsellor instead of someone with a background in gender.

The communication with the healthcare system hasn't always been good either, Obst says. 

"As a person who works in healthcare, I feel like there's been a fair number of interactions with people working in healthcare that have been really problematic — a lot of combative interactions.

"If I was a person who had more mental health concerns or didn't have a partner who worked in healthcare who could be an advocate, I'd feel like it could be a …"

"A deterrent," van Graven finishes. 

But van Graven and Obst are determined.

Van Graven started hormone treatment two weeks ago and already feels better.

He's hoping to undergo surgery in six months and be fully recovered in time to tie the knot in San Francisco's gorgeous, beaux arts city hall with up to 40 friends and family.

Their wedding planning hasn't exactly been straightforward.

After getting engaged in September 2017, the pair planned to invite more than 100 guests to a celebration in Calgary.

But something didn't feel right, so they changed their minds. They'd been to San Francisco for a post-engagement trip a year ago and loved it.

"When we told people we were going to go to San Francisco [instead] they were like, 'Yeah! That feels way more true to who you guys are,' " van Graven says.

If all goes according to plan, van Graven will present on the outside the way he feels on the inside by his wedding day.

He's not sure exactly what those changes will look like yet.

"It's different for everyone, he says. "My voice is going to drop. I might grow hair, I might lose my hair. It really depends on my genetics what my body's going to do on testosterone."

"There will be facial changes due to redistribution of fat and muscle, so my facial features will become more masculine."

Van Graven says he hopes to complete transitioning by the wedding.

"I just want to put a shirt on and not have a chest.

"I don't want to look back on my wedding day and be like, 'Who was this!?' Because I already look back on grad photos and stuff [and think that]. I don't want that for my wedding memories."