Did you grow up here in London? Yes. I went to Byron Southwood (P.S.) initially then I went to John Dearness. We lived in England for a year, so my grade eight year was over there and I went to, and here’s an irony, the Oxford Boys’ Grammar School. Y ou went to Western and got an Honours Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. What did you do right out of school? I was a computer programmer and then I went back and did the Master’s Degree. I did some programming for a small company for five years, and some teaching assisting. That’s when I did the Bachelor of Education, and after that I taught high school in Aylmer; East Elgin Secondary School for six years. What was the motivation to move to teaching? I felt like I wanted to do something else. I had done the programming thing and I was sort of tired of that. I thought it would be a good idea. The difficulty was that (teaching) took up a ferocious amount of time and I had a young family started and that became an issue for me personally. I decided to go back into the industry. Currently you are a Senior Systems Analyst at London Life and you often speak openly about your transition at work. What was it like to transition is such a large company? A hell of a lot of work. The company had a policy against dis– crimination based on sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. So I was covered. They were all quite clear about that and they all wanted to do the right thing. The problem was that they really didn’t have too many ideas on how to go about it. Would we do in-servicing sessions? Who would get a letter? I was for more inclusion. I deliberately stayed away (during the in-servicing). That was my decision because I wanted my colleagues to have space to process it. They did six sessions over Thursday and Friday, and I came back on Monday. How was that first day back at work? That was really something. I was ready. I needed to do it. It was something that had to happen. But my heart was pounding. You’re nervous. You’re optimistic that things are going to be okay because there’s been this whole process. They’ve had the sessions. But at the same time, you don’t know how it’s going to go. It was fine. People made mistakes with pronouns, a little bit, not much. People were generally people pretty good. As I tell folks, everyone was too busy too worry about it. Haha.
Jennifer
One on One with
Would you consider yourself lucky with how the transition went at work? Yes I would consider myself lucky. As hard as this was, there are others that have a much harder time. How have your family dealt with your transition? Have they been supportive? My family wasn’t bad at all when all things are considered. It wasn’t easy. I was married and I have two adult children. When I starting coming out in 2013 they were 23 and 19. They’ve been terrific. My daughter actually figured it out and came to me first. She figured out almost before I did. My son wasn’t totally surprised either. Other than that everybody else was in total shock. My wife and I ended up separating, partly because of this. As for other people in my family it’s been a mixed bag. I have an aunt and uncle in their eighties (my aunt has passed away now) and they were two of my best allies. There were others that were younger, who had trouble with it. My parents had a lot of trouble with it at first. They’re much better now than they used to be, but it was it was a massive, massive shock. They are really supportive in a lot of ways, getting used to this has been hard, but they are very much in my life all the time. You have done a lot of advocacy work since coming out. Why has that been so important to you? It’s nice to be able to educate people, that’s part of it. It’s also nice to be able to connect with other Trans people, like the Trans kids in the schools. That’s been very special. All those engagements have been very cathartic. Working on Pride has also been very important. It’s put me in touch with a whole lot of different people. How do I put it.
PRIDE Villager
Page 6 Issue 1 • Spring 2018
To advertise here, please contact Barb@VillagerPublications.com
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs