Q&A The changing landscape for transgender Canadians
Kael Sharman, a 47-year-old teacher at Tecumseh Vista Academy, was born a woman and began transitioning about four years ago.
He says it's about time transgender people across Canada receive guaranteed legal and human rights protection outlined in the recently announced Liberal government's Bill C-16.
CBC spoke with Sharman about his experience and what the proposed changes mean to him.
What was your first thought when the bill was brought forward?
Finally, this has been tabled by a sitting government — about time, way to go.
Why would this bill passing be important to people?
It's going to open some doors for us in terms of having a little bit of formal respect on paper. It's going to go a little ways in our lives, making them more comfortable with travel, access to health care. [It provides] a little bit of dignity just walking down the street. I hope we get there.
How important is it for someone transgender to have that respect?
Being trans is something that's a lot different than coming out as lesbian or coming out as gay or bisexual.
You kind of need the cooperation of people to refer to you in the right gender pronouns that you prefer, to cooperate in a name change, to give you access to health care, to even allow you to renew your drivers' license in a way that would have some dignity to it.
What was your experience coming out?
I didn't look masculine enough. I was a beautiful woman and I would often hear that from people. People didn't really take me seriously when I said I have some serious issues when it comes to my identity and my identity expression and feeling comfortable in my skin.
If this bill does pass, would this help people access more services here as opposed to traveling to a specialist, like you do, in London?
The best thing you can do is have a relationship with your family doctor and your family doctor can give you referrals.
How quickly do you think things would change if this bill passes?
Just because something's on paper is not going to change people's minds immediately, but I think it goes a long way to saying to people the government's changing, the world's changing and you need to come along with us.
With files from Lisa Xing