How this New Brunswicker is helping trans youth after growing up struggling to belong

Growing up in Saint-Quentin, a small village in northwestern New Brunswick, Pascale Joëlle Fortin-Daigle always felt different.

Even though they had their solid groups of friends, they never felt like they truly belonged.

"It was always like, 'okay, yes, I am friends with those people' … but inside there was still that missing piece," Fortin-Daigle said.

"Without seeing myself reflected in anything, it was hard for me to really grasp and be like, 'okay, yeah, I belong.'"

Now 30 years old, Fortin-Daigle is a married business owner living in Moncton who identifies as a trans-masculine non-binary person. 

Transgender refers to someone whose gender identity differs from what they were assigned at birth. It's an umbrella term that encompasses identities like non-binary, which refers to people who fall outside the male-female gender binary.

The most wonderful gift that you can do to yourself is being fully, authentically yourself. And seeing folks being able to do so in this community here in Moncton is wonderful.- Pascale Joël Fortin-Daigle, founder of Hello Gender

Each year in mid-November, Transgender Awareness Week is held. That's followed by Transgender Remembrance Day on Nov. 20, which is dedicated to commemorating those who have died due to transphobic acts and drawing attention to the violence directed toward transgender people.

While the day was first observed in 1999 to memorialize Massachusetts transgender women Rita Hester and Chenelle Pickett, who were murdered, Fortin-Daigle said it continues to hold significance for many trans people since "we are still under attack."

"We all hear of those horrendous stories where they commit suicide, they are attacked, they get killed," said Fortin-Daigle. 

"Families lost people. They lost loved ones because of the hatred, because of not seeing yourself past a certain age."

According to the Trans Murder Monitoring Report, 350 trans and gender-diverse people were reported murdered worldwide between Oct. 1, 2023 and Sept. 30, 2024 — one of the highest death tolls since its start in 2008.

Fortin-Daigle is working to increase education around 2SLGBTQ+ topics because they know what it's like to grow up without any representation in their community.

In school, Fortin-Daigle said they were taught what a boy's body looks like and what a girl's body looks like and how those two genders should act. But when puberty hit, they couldn't understand why they didn't check either of those boxes.

"As a teen, that's the one thing you want to do, is fit in, and I just didn't have that."

Fortin-Daigle said the overarching experience was one of loneliness. But without seeing others like them in their community, they couldn't even identify what they were feeling.

"My mom and dad were really open, and my mom really tried.… But not having the language to explain what's wrong within yourself, you can't really share with anyone else," they said.

WATCH | Fortin-Daigle describes growing up in Saint-Quentin:

How a trans person from rural N.B. found a sense of belonging — and is helping others

7 days ago

Duration 3:36

From loneliness in a small town to finding a community after moving to Moncton, Pascale Joëlle, who is non-binary, now helps others who are 2SLGBTQ+ find themselves.

"There was one guy [at my school who] was out as gay, and he was getting bullied like no other. And as soon as he graduated … he fled to Ottawa and never came back. So that's what I was seeing."

When they first got access to the internet, Fortin-Daigle first came across the term non-binary and started to realize they weren't alone.

They met some more people in the 2SLGBTQ+ community when they went to the University of Moncton's Edmundston campus. But it wasn't until Fortin-Daigle transferred to the Moncton campus a year later that they began to see themself represented and gained access to resources for trans people. 

They remember going on a humanitarian mission during their university years and having a conversation with a few others — who also turned out to be trans — about gender. 

"Being with folks that had the same, you know, questions, and researching who they were, really felt like, 'oh my god, I really am not alone,'" they said.

"The most wonderful gift that you can do to yourself is being fully, authentically yourself. And seeing folks being able to do so in this community here in Moncton is wonderful."

As an adult, Fortin-Daigle saw the need for more organizations to help 2SLGBTQIA+ youth and to counter misinformation about trans people.

It's one reason why they created Hello Gender in 2022 — a bilingual learning and consulting organization that provides educational services on gender-based topics, allows for a safe space for clients to ask questions and does consulting work for government, schools and businesses.

Fortin-Daigle said while there are many such services in English across Canada, there were few offered in French outside of Quebec.

And when it comes to breaking into rural communities, such as the one Fortin-Daigle is from, they said the key is being open and non-judgmental.

"With everything that's happening in the world, people want to know. And they see the validity, I guess, of being able to sit down with someone that, you know, is trans," they said.

"For me to do the work that I do, like I'm putting myself out there, I don't know what can happen, right? But I'm also thinking of me at 12 — that didn't have those resources and that didn't see a future for themselves — how impactful it is that now I am able to give that to other people."