LISA SALAZAR — BLOG

I took a leap of faith on the third Saturday in July 2008. It was either that or leap to my death. As scared as I was of what lay ahead, it was less frightening than the thought of never having experienced what it felt like to live authentically. I'm happy to still be here, as Lisa. A topic garnering much attention in social sciences is intersectionality, the categorizations of race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group. It is regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Add to this idea the questions we ask and the answers we get as we explore our world as children and in our youth. What assumptions, expectations, and conclusions do we draw? Do they set us up for success or failure? Same-sex attracted and trans and non-binary persons navigate and view life through a lens that often makes them imagine a future that is frightening. Fear of rejection, ridicule, and abandonmen...

Trigger Warning: Death by Suicide Officiating a friend’s Celebration of Life was an honour, but it shouldn’t have been necessary. I have been growing increasingly angry, and I want to lash out at the injustice and ignorance that has now claimed the life of someone I was becoming friends with. She was a fellow trans sister. Katterina was from Nova Scotia and transitioned socially and medically about six years ago. As is the case for many married trans people, she, too, went through a divorce. She was an electrician by trade. After finding her work being sabotaged and her tools disappearing from the work sites, she moved to BC. She spoke to Morgane Oger of Trans Alliance in Vancouver, who assured her that the trade unions in BC had zero tolerance for that kind of crap. Moving to Vancouver seemed like the only way to find peace of mind, yet she hated being separated from her parents and her adult children. She packed up her belonging into her brand-new Toyota Corolla and drove across the ...

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, the then 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. This is what I said: 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 sha...

Added a Postscript at 8:00 p.m. PDT on April 25, 2018 Five years ago, I spent a week in Fort Lauderdale to attend a trans-related medical symposium. One of the event’s highlights was meeting Jazz Jenning and her mother in person. Jazz is a well-known trans girl who became famous when Barbara Walters interviewed her in 2008 at five. In her late teens, she starred in her reality TV series, “I am Jazz.” The other highlight was staying with my first cousin, Carlos, and his wife, who live in Ft. Lauderdale. Carlos drove me to the airport on Tuesday for my return trip to Vancouver via Chicago. As he pulled away, my phone vibrated. A text message from United Airlines told me my 4:15 flight to Chicago was delayed until after 7:00 p.m. I panicked.  I rushed into the airport and went to the United Airlines ticket counter. I told them I had a problem. I was scheduled to catch a connecting flight from Chicago to Vancouver at about the same time I would be boarding the plane in Ft. Lauderd...

On Tuesday, Sept. 26, a group of about 100 people stood outside the Langley Schools District 35 office in support of the Trustees who had recently approved the SOGI 123 curriculum. (I won’t go into the SOGI specifics, anyone can review it for themselves at www.sogieducation.com .) Photo by Brad Dirks (no relation to Paul Dirks). Among those holding up signs and standing in solidarity with the trustees, were students, family members, friends and allies of LGBTQ students. I wasn’t able to attend, since my current occupation had me stuck in downtown Vancouver. During the two weeks leading up to this peaceful rally, I was in communication with a few individuals who were responding to another group of parents. This first group had voiced strong opposition to SOGI, with a well-organized initiative that included a Facebook page and a website to raise money.  The Langley parents who are afraid of SOGI gathered a few weeks earlier to listen to their organizers, who incl...

Nine years ago I began my social and medical transition after decades of struggle to reconcile my Evangelical faith to who I was discovering myself to be. You need to understand that I was almost 40 years old by the time I first came across the term "transgender," in about 1988. It was in the early 70's, during the Jesus People movement that I "came to faith." Secretly, though, my hope and motive for embracing the Christian faith was my sincere belief that this confusion I lived with would one day disappear. I just needed to be faithful and, you know, do all the things we are taught to do; like pray without ceasing, memorize scripture to retrain my mind, die to myself daily, put to death the works of the flesh, renounce Satan, and the list goes on. From the academic research I have done as part of my MA in public and pastoral leadership, two central truths emerged for me. 1) Transition is a spiritual experience that transforms a person — much like a near-death...

A personal Meaning for the word transgender Published by ConversationsThatMatter.tv and VancouverSun.com  Saturday, July 21, 2017 (CLICK IMAGE TO WATCH INTERVIEW) “This week’s Conversation That Matters features Lisa Salazar, who helps us to understand the transgender spectrum. “What does it mean to be transgender? “The term is relatively new. It is also widely misunderstood. Many people believe trans or transgender is about sexual orientation rather than gender identity. “After decades of fighting the voices in her head, Lisa took on the long and challenging transition from her life as a man to the one she knew was her true self. “Lisa takes us on her journey and at the same time provides insight into the lives of transgender people. “Her life story and the recent enactment of Bill C-16, which ensures that transgender people are guaranteed the same human rights as those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, lead to this week’s conversation. “Co...

A reflection on the story of the Apostle Philip’s encounter with the Samaritans (Acts 8:4-8) and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40) and its connection to Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:7-8), and the future fate of the foreigner and the eunuch (Isaiah 56:3-5).  — Lisa Salazar, MAPPL  Presented on November 19, 2017, at NorthwoodUnited Church, Surrey, BC . This church is starting the process of becoming certified as an Affirming Ministry. In order to become an Affirming Ministry, a congregation (or presbytery, conference, educational institution, outreach ministry, chaplaincy, retreat centre, camp) must go through an educational/discernment process that reflects on what it means to be inclusive and evaluates your ministry’s openness to the ongoing work of being intentional about how it includes others within the life and work of your ministry. (A previous version of this message was presented on September 25, 2016, at Crescent United Chur...

Hundreds gathered at the Peace Arch Border Crossing Sunday afternoon, February 12, 2017, to express concern and opposition to recent American immigration policies and attitudes impacting immigrants and refugees. This peaceful demonstration was originally planned for February 5th but had to be postponed due to poor weather conditions. I was invited to say a few words; this was my text: I am an immigrant, first to the United States and later to Canada. I am Hispanic, I am Latina… I am white-skinned. I am a citizen of Colombia by birth—and a citizen of Canada by choice. I am a trans woman. I am a lesbian Like everyone who has ever lived, I had no choice in which country I'd be born in; Nor into which religious tradition. I did not get to choose my parents; I had no choice over my mother tongue. I had no choice when it came to the color of my skin. I did not choose my sexual orientation, and I did not choose to be transgender. Of all these things I have listed, only one I choose ...

Image: http://www.danasrhj.top The Apparent Hypocrisy of British Columbia’s Elected Liberal Government The same week that Transgender advocates and allies stood in front of the BC Legislature in support of the introduction of a private member’s bill aimed at protecting the rights of transgender people, the BC Liberal Government announced an order-in-council that adopts the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association’s Codes of Practice for both kennel and cat breeding. Indeed, this is very good news for dogs and cats in British Columbia. Yet, this same Government has sat intentionally on it’s laurels, refusing to pass an exact version of the “trans rights bill” on three previous occasions. This is the fourth time the Honourable Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA for Vancouver-West End, introduces this bill. The bill would amend the BC Human Rights Code (BCHRC) to include “gender identity and gender expression.” Having “gender identity and gender expression” included in the B...

My letter to the editor was published in today’s the Province newspaper ; it’s reposted below. I wrote it in response to a full-page feature story that appeared in Sunday’s (Nov. 29th) edition, titled ‘There’s a revolution going on.’ Lisa Salazar: Despite Caitlyn Jenner, many people still struggle with ‘men in women’s clothing While I am always grateful for positive press regarding trans issues, especially when I happen to know some of the players in the stories, my hopes for greater understanding and acceptance continue to be tempered by the lived realities of most of the trans persons I have come to know. The revolution University of B.C. student Cormac O’Dwyer alludes to in Province reporter Glen Schaefer’s article on Sunday is, unfortunately, nothing more than a tempest in a teacup. While it is true that Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out caused a 100 percent increase in the number of people who claim to know a transgender person (to 16 percent from eight percent), being aware that ...

I’ve got a profile on Linkedin and half-a-dozen other job banks, and after months of sending out resumes and cover letters, I feel my self-worth declining.  My morning routine is to pour myself a cup of coffee and sit at my computer for a couple of hours to see what new job postings appear in the above-mentioned job banks and send out cover letters, resumes, and the link to my website. My Google search is simple: “graphic design jobs in Vancouver, BC.” These days, graphic design job descriptions include many technology qualifiers. They are advertising for computer programmers and engineers who like to use other fonts besides Arial Times Roman and Comic Sans and can take photos with a real camera. However, what really gets to me is how f**k**g impersonal this online job application process has become. The adage “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know” must be true. Even Psychology Today has talked about it. One gets the feeling it doesn’t matter what you can do and has done; i...