Keynote to BC Summer Camps Association, January 2018

I was invited to set the tone for the 2018 conference; the focus of the conference was to prepare for the 2018 summer camp season in the context of SOGI 123. This is what I did and said:

BC Summer Camps are world-renowned, creating memories that will last a lifetime for young people. Will they be good or bad memories?

When Joel Harnest, Education and Training Coordinator for Qmunity, first spoke to me about this conference in November 2017, I assumed it was to co-facilitate a couple of diversity workshops. Something I’ve done with him many times. But then he asked if I would consider delivering a keynote presentation at the upcoming Annual BC Summer Camps Association General Meeting at the end of January 2018. That was a much weightier task.

I wondered how I might make my life experience, training and research relevant to your group. I immediately thought of my sons; I’ll explain in a minute.

First, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some thoughts and reflections with you. I feel very honoured to be starting things off for you tonight.

In the last six years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking and presenting workshops to a diverse set of groups, ranging from conferences to meetings with faith and denominational leaders, educators, lawyers, high-tech companies, non-profit and community groups, and healthcare providers.

It seems a bit ironic to me, whenever I speak about my life as a transgender person, that I end up sharing details of my life which I suppressed and kept secret for over five decades. I made sure they remained gagged and shackled. I never imagined I would be dredging them up for others to see.

It’s always risky for me to go backwards because some memories can trigger some negative feelings. I have to admit that preparing this talk made me feel a bit sentimental and melancholic. Muy triste. Very sad.

But this sadness is not for me; it has nothing to do with feeling sorry, regretting my choices, or believing my life was somehow a tragedy.

No. The sadness results from the realization that I am incredibly privileged compared to many trans persons, whose lives growing up were more complicated than mine, or who have yet to find a way to live authentically, and long for the day when they will experience congruence between how they identify internally and how the world sees them and allows them to exist.

In preparation for this talk, I decided to speak to my three adult sons; I wanted to know what they remember most about their summer camp experiences a quarter of a century ago. They are 42, 38 and 34 years old today, so a lot of water has passed under the bridge.

The reason is that I never got to experience summer camp for myself. I knew nothing about “Summer Camps” growing up. But there’s a good reason for this: my family is from Colombia.

In 1960, we moved to the United States. I finally heard about Summer Camps four years later. Unfortunately, it was Allan Sherman’s camp parody song that made it to 2nd place on the charts for three weeks during the summer of 1964. It provided a comical depiction of Summer Camps; it started like this:

    Hello Muddah, hello Fadduh. —
    Here I am at Camp Granada. —
    Camp is very entertaining. —

    And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining. —

The closest I ever came to a camp experience in Colombia was when my cousin and I spent one week at their ranch in the jungle near Cali with our dads; I was eight years old.

It was the first time I relieved myself in an out-house, rode a horse—or maybe it was a mule—and the first time I showered outdoors under a spigot hanging from a beam on the porch.

That was also the first time I came face-to-face with a poisonous snake; it had wrapped itself around a gate post. That was also the only time in my life when I think I ran the 50-yard dash in under 6 seconds!

Instead of camping, we belonged to a golf and country club, where we spent most weekends and long vacation breaks. My older sister, brother, and I hung out at the swimming pool or the lake while our parents played golf, and the nanny watched my younger sister and brother.

And if we got hungry, we would go into one of the dining rooms, eat, and sign the tab. This hardly compares to a Summer Camp experience.

But I digress.

A few weeks ago, my oldest son told me about his camp experience when he was 15. I felt a pang of guilt for subjecting him to the experience he described. I had never stopped to consider how he must have felt when we signed him up. I honestly don’t remember if we even asked him if he wanted to go.

If I had known then what I know today about stress and adverse childhood experiences, I don’t think I would have put him on the Britannia to go for a week to Anvil Island. My wife and I thought this would be good for him. We had heard great things about the camp from friends at church who had been staff for many years.

But that summer, my son was recovering from knee surgery to repair the damage from a ski accident on his last run of the season. He didn’t know a soul at the camp, and adding to his misery, he was wearing a leg and knee brace for support. He was self-conscious and sat on the sidelines for most of the week. He hated it!

In case you’re from Anvil Island, this is not a criticism of the camp. It’s a criticism of me. I didn’t consider his needs; I forced him to go. That is what tainted his experience.

There was a counsellor who made a valiant attempt to help make his time more enjoyable, and we were grateful for that. But as parents, we made a mistake; we were wrong for forcing him to go to summer camp. The only thing my son remembers about his Summer Camp experience is how he felt self-conscious, uncomfortable, sad, hurt, and ultimately angry.

My second son’s summer camp experience was an improvement, but then again, it seems like I was too focused on work, which was my way of coping with the internal chaos I always lived with. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I came to understand his ambivalence on the day when we took the ferry to Langdale and drove him to Elphinstone.

He told me the reason he wasn’t thrilled to go wasn’t that he didn’t know anyone, but because that was the same week he wanted to play in the Provincial Little League Tournament with the Little Mountain All-star team. The only consolation is that he made it work, thanks to his gift of making friends easily. He is one of those persons who has never known a stranger.

Fortunately, his second summer camp experience was much better. This time, he went to Keat’s Camp with a classmate, plus there were other familiar faces; he fit right in.

Son number three feels like he won the lottery in the end. You’ll see why in a minute. In 1994, we had started attending a church with a more engaged youth group. The next summer, many in the group went to Keats Camp.

Though he knew a handful of people, he remembers feeling like an outsider at first. There was a camp culture with unfamiliar routines and, as he put it, a strange lingo. He went for the first week as a camper, and along with a few other church kids, stayed a few more weeks as a volunteer.

His second summer at Keats was much better. Once again, he attended as a camper for one week and then stayed a few more weeks as a worker. He went back as staff for his third year. Being at camp taught him valuable leadership skills, but more importantly, it is where he met the young woman who became his wife 14 years later.

So, why did I tell you about my three sons’ Summer Camp Experiences?

I wanted to acknowledge that many intersecting factors and determinants can impact a child’s camp experience. These are things beyond your control. Thrown into the mix are family dynamics, personality types, personal struggles, cultural and social differences, and the child’s familiarity, sense of belonging, and sense of fitting in.

And I’m sure you’ve all welcomed campers who, despite your best efforts, you’ve been unable to integrate, and who may have disrupted the camp. Or you’ve had someone whose needs you weren’t prepared or trained to deal with, or children who, for whatever reason, were not really ready to be in the camp environment.

I don’t think I’m wrong to assume everyone here is committed to making sure kids in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people feel welcome and safe. If a camper arrives with a note about bed-wetting, I’m sure you will waste no time in having a quick, private talk with them, letting them know that if they have an accident, you can help them discreetly. Or if a child has a nut allergy, maybe you’ve chosen to make all meals nut-free, instead of having a nut-free zone, which would make them feel somehow different.

I have tried to imagine what camp would have been like for me. Frankly, I am grateful I never had that test. I know enough about myself to say, without hesitation, that I would not have been a happy camper. I was a bed wetter, always one of the last to be picked for a team, one of the slowest runners, and self-conscious about being shirtless, to the point that I preferred swimming with a T-shirt on.

That is why, as a dad of three sons, I prayed to God that they would not be saddled with gender dysphoria. I was always looking for tell-tale signs; from the moment they were born, until they were teenagers. I also couldn’t help but compare myself to them; it made me jealous to see how, unlike me, they seemed to be comfortable in their own bodies. I was grateful they were free of my curse.

That is also why I felt so guilty when my oldest son told me how self-conscious and alone he felt when we sent him to Anvil Island. His experience resonated deeply with me. He was dealing with a negative body image with the leg brace, he felt like an outsider, and perhaps even abandoned and not heard. Memories of being a new kid in school in California came flooding back to me; I remember how incredibly insecure and adrift I felt.

Back in Colombia, I had always attended the same boys’ school with my older brother, Enrique, who was three years ahead of me. He resented my mom’s insistence that he keep an eye on me, but I was grateful I had him in my life. For example, he always made sure I got on the bus at the end of the day to get home. He also saved me from a boy named Diego more than once, who bullied me on the playground.

I was timid and unsure how to act, so I studied my brother—and other boys, for that matter. Sharing a bedroom with Enrique made me realize I was somehow different. He didn’t seem to be self-conscious about his body like I was, and he wasn’t introspective like me. Growing up, I tried to emulate him and to be like him. I liked what he liked and hated the same things he claimed to like and hate. There might have been a few exceptions, for example, he didn’t like onion rings; I loved onion rings! But for the most part, I became his mini-me.

Of course, this is a retrospective view of my life, because at the time I didn’t have the intellectual wherewithal to articulate or formulate questions that might bring clarity to my internal chaos. The self-doubt, the introspection, the unease with all things masculine; they were all there from as early as I can remember. I just didn’t have a language for it.

My brother and I were split up when we arrived in California; he went to a junior high school, and I went to an elementary school. For me, it felt like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. It was sink or swim. I could no longer run to him when I felt threatened, and I didn’t have a social role model to copy. None of us kids spoke English, except for my older sister, who went to a girls’ high school.

Like many first-generation immigrant kids, I wanted to fit in; I didn’t want to be made fun of, and most of all, I didn’t want to stand out or be seen as different or odd. I didn't want to be hurt or bullied.

The details of that first school year are a blur, but my memory is sharp about the intense feelings I experienced. Many of them were strange and new. Though I grew up with one sister who was six years older and another who was five years younger, I had never spent more than a few hours around girls my own age, with a couple of first cousins at each other’s birthday parties.

But now I was with girls my age for thirty hours a week, and I felt unhinged. Why did I feel so drawn to them, and why did I want to be like them? There was nothing sexual about this; I was too young to even know what that meant. I now understand what was going on, but at the time, these feelings were perplexing and confusing.

One night, I made the mistake of asking my brother whether he ever felt he wanted to be a girl. His anger and disgust left no doubt in my mind; this was not what boys were supposed to feel or think about. I say “left no doubt” because by then I had many unanswered questions, such as “Who am I?” “What am I?” and “Am I the only one who feels like this?”

Admittedly, these are universal questions for all kids. I would assume most people in this room asked these questions to some degree or another, especially in those awkward years that stretch from pre-pubescence to young adulthood. Maybe you still do? ☺

These are questions of survival. We all yearn for security and acceptance by the group. It is natural to fear rejection, ridicule, and not fitting in.

But as we now know, those who belong to any minority group experience these feelings more acutely than those who belong to a dominant group. And if one is lucky enough to belong to more than one minority group, their life experience is likely to be more emotionally complicated.

It is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit that most people survive without imploding or resorting to maladaptive coping strategies that are self-depleting and damaging.

Here's what I've learned in my role in health care settings... and while the context is different, the lessons and skills are transferable.

Under stress, the brain produces cortisol and modulates adrenaline levels. Together, these hormones prepare us for fight-or-flight, and we experience many physiological effects in our bodies. Additionally, stress clouds our thinking. We become hyper-vigilant, develop tunnel vision, and experience an altered sense of reality.

As a spiritual health practitioner, my job is to come alongside patients and their families to assess their stress and levels of distress, and, if possible, help them process difficult feelings and emotions; actively listening for what matters most to them and what their source of inner strength might be.

We also listen for unhealthy attitudes and assumptions about how they view themselves and their situations. Helping them feel safe is a primary goal. We know how stress impacts health.

As a transgender person who has spent countless hours in conversations with other transgender and non-binary people as part of my research and Master’s Degree studies, and more recently as a hotline operator with the Trans LifeLine, I can attest to the sense of insecurity and stress many of us have lived with all our lives.

For this reason, I’ve sought opportunities to network with various health care teams who want to improve patient-centred health care for trans and non-binary patients. The question is, how can we use active listening and other communication tools when caring for them? The sad reality is that trans people continue to experience distressing interactions with health care providers.

I could tell you many stories that trans people have told me about their horrible experiences at clinics, labs, and hospitals. These stories circulate, and the net result is that some are reluctant to seek medical help when they need it, with negative consequences. For example, there are many incidents of manageable urinary tract infections escalating to kidney problems.

But things are changing in health care. It is getting better.

For example, Joel has presented workshops to health professionals, and both Vancouver Coastal Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority have developed training for primary caregivers.

The ultimate goal is not just to raise awareness but to change behaviour. Head knowledge is one thing; applying that knowledge is another.

That is why school boards are also responding to the need to reduce stress for students who feel marginalized because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. By using SOGI123 resources, they are working to create safe spaces that benefit all students.

Indeed, a recent study comparing psychosocial markers between high schools with G.S.A. groups and those without found that the suicide rate among straight boys is lower in schools with a G.S.A. Why? Perhaps it is because there is greater acceptance of differences, which benefits all students who might have been picked on for any reason.

Not everyone is happy with this new initiative in schools. The pushback is coming from those who do not believe people like me should be protected, or even allowed to exist.

Fortunately, gender identity and gender expression are now protected federally and provincially under the respective human rights codes. No doubt the debate will continue as long as people have a problem accepting the mounting medical, psychological, and social body of evidence that informs our current understanding of human sexuality.

Interestingly, the corporate world and the courts have been years ahead in responding to the reality of trans and non-binary people. Many of North America’s largest corporations, including Apple, IBM, Boeing, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Microsoft, have had trans-inclusive policies for their employees and customers for more than a decade, and courts have consistently ruled in favour of trans people in cases of discrimination.

In fact, this was one of the arguments the BC Government used to stall the legislation to amend the Human Rights Code for years; it argued that case law already provided all the protection trans people needed. But it’s helpful that we now have explicit language that makes it clear: discriminating against someone on the basis of their gender identity or expression is against the law.

But why bother? Why all the fuss? Don’t trans people represent a very small portion of the population? It is estimated that 0.6% of the adult population in the United States is transgender. This number equals 1.4 million. Canada, with one-tenth the population, could have 140,000 adult trans people.

For our context, combining Island Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Fraser Health, we have one-tenth of the Canadian population. In other words, there are 14,000 adult trans people in BC’s South Coast.

What about those who are under the age of 18? It is estimated that the percentage could be higher, perhaps 1%. Using Ministry of Education figures, BC has a total of 634,000 K-12 students enrolled in public and private schools. If 1% of them are trans, then this means there are 6,340 young trans people in BC, ages 5 to 18.

These are the facts informing Fraser Health, which has the highest youth population in all of BC; they could account for 4,500 trans youth.

Admittedly, I’ve been focusing on trans and non-binary people. This is where the focus is these days. But this does not mean that young gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, intersex, queer and Two-Spirit people are any less important in this conversation. But it can be said that when a safe space is created for the least accepted and understood group, it creates a safe space for all, even straight kids.

I hope this will stimulate you to consider how to create safe, inclusive spaces and programs that will benefit not just youth who are LGBTQ2S+, but, as I said above, and research has shown, also benefit straight/heterosexual youth.

I am inviting you to join the conspiracy that includes the corporate world, the courts, all levels of government, educators, a growing number of communities of faith, and medical and mental health professionals. The goal of this conspiracy is to create a safe space for all.

As I suggested earlier, we all go through an intense period of self-discovery. We compare and contrast ourselves with others, learn to fit in as we develop our talents, explore our giftedness and creativity, and develop social skills.

But for any of us who must also juggle additional issues, the resulting stress can affect us in ways that seem unnecessary, especially when the solution lies in creating a safe space where stressors can be mitigated by investing time to understand and respect our differences and to appreciate our remarkable diversity.

I believe this is the role Summer Camps can play in making a difference in the lives of all campers. Creating a safe space may include modest physical changes to your facilities, and yes, there may be capital costs associated with these changes.

But as we are finding in health care, the most important changes are not financially burdensome; they are attitudinal and behavioural.

I haven’t used the words "compassion" and "empathy," but I hope their implications haven't been lost on you. May your sense of compassion and empathy inspire you to create safe spaces for all your future campers. May their camp experiences help them connect with the beauty of creation, learn to respect and cherish it, and especially each other. May this be what they remember most about camp for the rest of their lives.