LISA SALAZAR — BLOG

Story: Excerpt from Chapter 27 “The Day the Music Stopped” Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life.  This was the 7th Anniversary of our shopping trip to Costco on Christmas Eve, which we now celebrate by going shopping at Costco on the 24th, followed by brunch! Photo: Selfie with Duncan at the Richmond, BC Costco, Dec. 24, 2014. Here’s the back story. How and when I would begin transition—that was the $64,000 question. I still did not have the confidence to present as a female when I started to disclose to people. My friend Duncan convinced me one day to come visit them as Lisa. His argument was that I needed to start presenting, and what better place than in the safety of close friends. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, insisting this was something I had to do.  There was a lot of truth to what he was saying and I concluded he was right about my feeling safe with them. I finally did this one Friday afternoon in early November, 2007. I wore ...

Such a simple invitation, but when acted on, it has the power to change. One might think it’s getting better. After all, how many millions saw Laverne Cox, the transgender actor of the popular “Orange is the New Black” Netflix series, on the cover of  Time Magazine ? And what about all the buzz regarding the Amazon TV series “ Transparent ”? I’m talking about transgender inclusion. But I have my doubts that even such high-profile public relations coups have made that much impact on most of the population. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but when school boards, city councils, and other elected members continue to debate whether or not to give gender non-conforming persons some basic level of human rights protection, what else can I think? Even in Canada, with its fair share of progressive people, there is little to no discussion about the Canadian Senate’s  stonewalling  of a proposed bill to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. The bil...

I won’t malign this said professor, but I did take issue with the WSJ Op-Ed he promoted, which weighs in on the transgender debate. All the discussion concerned the recent debate at the Vancouver School Board regarding their policy on how transgender and gender-variant students should be treated. This became a circus when parents self-identifying as conservative Asian evangelical Christians lobbied against it. Much has been said for and against this policy, including the professor’s Facebook wall comment thread. One perspective missing in this banter is that we are talking about only one trans person out of 166 (.6%).  Additionally, at most, only one out of two experience gender dysphoria that is severe enough to warrant social and, eventually, medical transition. In other words, all the pedagogical anxiety expressed is, for the most part, unfounded. Not every teacher, class, or school risks being blessed by a gender non-conforming student. A school with a student body of 500 w...

It seems innocent enough to have a day to celebrate fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. The Salazar family, summer 2002. If one’s relationship with their father was good, this day of honor will seem completely appropriate and welcomed. This yearly reminder could be extremely painful if your dad did not deserve this kind of respect. Equally, if you’re a trans woman who fathered children, this day can either be good or a bad—if not surreal—experience. It all depends on the kind of relationship you now have with your children. Father’s Day is extremely painful when your children have rejected you and want nothing to do with you. As far as they are concerned, you might as well be dead. It hurts. However, If your relationship has survived, you can count yourself lucky. I was fortunate on two counts. On the one hand, I had a loving dad, and, best of all, despite his relatively old age, when I came out to him (he was 89), he accepted me. O...

It’s a dizzying time for trans people. Vancouver parents opposed to the trans-inclusive policy, June 11, 2014 Last night, I attended a meeting at the Vancouver School Board (VSB) as I listened to the final presentation from medical experts. The issue being considered is revising a 2004 VSB policy that spells out the district’s guidelines for providing a safe, positive environment for trans and gender-variant students in all grades, from kindergarten to grade 12. The associate superintendent said, “The biggest change was about getting some clarity of language.” This simple administrative procedure became the entrée for a well-organized and vocal group of conservative parents who self-described as Chinese Evangelical Christians. They used this as an opportunity to lobby against the adoption of the proposed updated policy, arguing that this policy took away their rights as parents and guardians to decide what was best for their children. Unfortunately, these parents are using both r...

Another friend,  Susan Cottrel,  also invited me to write some thoughts.  This is the link to her blog,  FreedHearts :  http://freedhearts.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/can-i-trust-you-with-a-secret/   I invite you to visit her blog. Do you have a secret? How big is it? How do you think people will respond if they find out? Disclosure, revelation, exposure, or whatever word you may have for it is a visceral, frightening process. Especially if the information is so sensitive, some would prefer death by flaying. But in fact, that is what disclosure is all about, peeling away the layers that hide the “body” of truth. Perhaps that is why it can be so traumatic. On October 2007, I began disclosing to family and friends that I had been diagnosed with acute gender dysphoria—that I was “transgender.” I had already lived eight years with this verdict; it took me that long to reconcile myself and my faith to my diagnosis. The news shocked everyone; only ...

A friend,  Matthias Roberts,  recently invited me to write some thoughts on belonging. He said this: "Specifically, if you could share a story on a time where you felt that you truly belonged — even if it was just for a moment." He published my response today (May 17, 2014), so I'm sharing it here too. This is the link to his blog,  Not Boring Yet :  http://notboringyet.com/saturday-stories/belonging-saturday-stories/   I invite you to visit his blog and read some of the other stories from other contributors. I felt like I did not know how to pray for nearly two decades. Oh, I prayed, but my sense was that my prayers were ineffective—like lead balloons—my prayers didn’t even reach the ceiling, let alone G_d, or so I thought. The very public process of transitioning seemed so drastic and unfair. After all, the struggle with my gender identity was a very private matter. Why was the solution—if, in fact, to tra...

Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, but not into the hands of mortals; for equal to his majesty is his mercy, and equal to his name are his works. (Sirach 2.18 – NRSV) In all the reading I’ve been doing in preparation for my Hebrew Bible class, I’ve come across several verses that have captured my imagination. The one above made me pause, and the more I reflected on what it describes, I couldn’t help but compare it to the admonition in the letter to the Hebrews, where the perspective of falling into the hands of God is described as a frightful experience. (Heb. 10.31) Because of my personal involvement a couple of years ago concerning the “Kill the Gay” Bill that eventually was passed in Uganda, I have kept an eye on the key players. These American fundamentalists are recognized as fully responsible for instigating the homophobia that resulted in the infamous legislation. In an OpEd in the Los Angeles Times on March 23, 2014, Kapya Kaoma (an Anglican priest and the senior re...

The kind of stuff I was thinking about  leading up to Easter 2014 Chapter Nine in Luke has got to be one of the most action-packed chapters you may ever encounter in the Bible. In only sixty-two verses, we see thirteen different dramatic scenes flash before us: Jesus sends out the twelve Apostles  Herod is perplexed by news about Jesus — Is he Elijah?  Jesus feeds the five thousand  Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ  Jesus foretells his death  Jesus talks about taking up your cross daily to follow him  The Transfiguration!  Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit after disciples are unable  Jesus foretells his death again  Jesus talks about who is the Greatest  Jesus talks about how anyone not against us is for us  A Samaritan village rejects Jesus after Jesus sets his face on Jerusalem  Jesus spells out the cost of following him  Each of these scenes provides a lot to think about and talk about. I’ve been reflect...

It's my wallet that decides what I do these days! Jared Leto as Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. Anne Marie Fox — Focus Features But in the meantime, I have been reading the ongoing negative commentary about the portrayal of the transgender character “Rayon” from the perspective of the trans community.  What needs to be considered is that there is today a generational divide in the trans* community that needs to be understood. For us over 55, our experience is vastly different from those in their thirties and forties. And a universe away from those who are in their youth and into their twenties. I suspect all the clamor comes from the younger sets, which had not lived through the painful years when we did not have the nomenclature to make sense of our lives.  In 1980 I was thirty. I had been married for six years and was terrified. I didn’t know what I was. That year I came out to my wife. All I could tell her was that I felt inadequate as a man, that I felt feminine, and I...

In my blogpost of a couple of days ago, I touched on some of the things that lift me and those that, well, shoot me down. However, I have not been able to get one thing out of my mind since I received the news on Sunday evening. Let me explain. At last week's Gay Christian Network (GCN) Conference in Chicago, I met Betsy, a fellow Canadian. She attended as an ally and we had a long chat about an old friend from her high school, who like me, transitioned from male to female in her fifties, Amanda. She shared how Amanda had friends who supported her but these relationships had slowly cooled and Betsy was concerned for her friend. She thanked me for my work and was looking forward to being a more informed friend of Amanda. The note I received from Betsy on Sunday night was short; Amanda had ended her life. This my friends, is a very low low. It is a sad commentary that life is made to be so impossible for some that they cannot envision living another day. That impossibility is ...

Sometimes I preach to the choir, sometimes to the genuinely curious and sensitive; at other times to hostile skeptics, but often to myself. I had the distinct honor and privilege to do a workshop at this year's Gay Christian Network Conference (GCN) last weekend. I cannot begin to describe what it is like to be among 700 attendees who have one thing in common, a hunger and a love for God, and for whom faith is not a legalistic dogma, but a the river of life. To say that gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, and gender-queer persons are excluded from the "banquet" of the King is to deny the essential message of the Gospel, and comes pretty close to that unforgivable sin, which is to ascribe the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil. One only needs to meet the large number of parents of LGBTQ persons who attended this year's conference, listen to their stories and see the love in their eyes to appreciate our Heavenly Father's heart more fully. No one can sit...

It was with a heavy heart that I chose not to renew the website I created three years ago on New Year's Eve, "UgandaUrgentAction.com." It's time for quiet diplomacy and prayer. Original Website, January 3, 2011 How it looked on Dec. 17, 2012 Earlier that December 31, 2010 I read a blog post by my friend Kathy Baldock titled: "Genocide brewing in Uganda." It dealt with the infamous "Kill the Gays Bill" that was being debated in Uganda's Parliament and its passage seemed eminent. It upset me deeply and I decided to write an open letter to all 287 members of parliament, the President, the Prime Minister, and both the Cabinet and the shadow cabinet. Then I got the idea to create the website to promote a letter writing campaign. I enlisted a friend who is a copy writer to come up with three letters people could choose from and while I waited for the domain to go live, I got busy creating the page. Once it was up and running and a...