Class of 1977
Lord Beaverbrook High School
Lord Beaverbrook was an enormous high school in the southeast
of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And to paraphrase Charles Dickens: I
enjoyed the best of times and suffered the worst of times at LBHS.
Although I hated high school, I moved in a circle of free spirits who
kept me above water. I loved my friends and and the good times we
shared.
However, I never shared with anyone my deepest secret: that I
was a "transvestite," or a type of "sexual invert." At least that is
what the medical dictionaries said. In the 1970s, these were the
"scientific" terms for those people known as "faggots" in high
school. None of this made sense to me at the time, and it just
never occured to me that the dictionaries were wrong. As far as
I knew, I was the only such person in the world, and that
high school was no place to be openly queer.
I learned that lesson early on in life. In grade three, the worst
epithet in the school-yard was "faggot." It didn't matter that we
learned the word well before we knew what it meant. We heard
adults and older students using the term, and everyone
knew it was not something to be accused of. The next epithets we learned
were those representing the sexual acts that "fags" did.
When I was in grade seven, the administration at my junior high school, David Thompson,
reinforced the lesson that "fags" are acceptable targets of
humiliation. They divided the boys and the girls into competing
groups to raise funds for a local scholarship. The boys lost, and
their "punishment" was to be auctioned to the girls at a "Slave
Day," during which the boys were forced to dress like girls and
parade around the school.
When I reached high school, I buried my gender queerness
as deeply as I could, and suffered in silence. My natural shyness
made dating girls a frightening experience. I tried to be as masculine
as I could, playing football, hockey, and lacrosse. I loved those
sports, but the requisite manliness always seemed beyond my
grasp.
I began to hate my body, because I could never bulk it up and I
could barely grow a beard. I began to hate school, because the
atmosphere felt so oppressive. I simply prefered to stay home
and be Chris/tina, or escape to the mountains, or spend my
time in the public library writing poetry and searching the stacks
for books that might explain my femininity.
Some twenty years later, July 25-27, 1997, I attended my high
school reunion. It had taken me nearly that long to find my way
out of the closet after I left LBHS. When my invitation arrived,
I knew it was time to close that chapter in my past
and get on with my life.
With a handful of exceptions I had not seen most of my class-mates since 1977.
None of them had ever met me as Chris/tina, and only one, my
best friend Derrick
Fulton, even knew that I was transgendered. I owe a lot to Derrick, who is now a lawyer in Toronto. When I called from
Calgary to tell him that I was attending as Chris/tina, he backed me up
completely, and really helped me to enjoy what was both a frightening and
exhilerating experience. Just like my high school years had been.
(Thank you, Derrick! From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I can never
fully express how much I love you and value your friendship.)
I guess my appearance caused a bit of a stir, and the first night
a lot of people just didn't know what to make of me. Except for my
old friends who kept me in the protective security of their company all night long. For me, the real
ice-breaking moment came when Kirk arrived, took one look at me,
and broke into a broad grin. As we hugged, he exclaimed, "Chris,
you haven't changed a bit in twenty years!"
My high school reunion was a marvelous experience. My old friends
were incredible, and I realized that I made some pretty good choices
in my friendships.
I spent much of the second evening surrounded by people, including
those I barely knew, who peppered me with all sorts of questions
about being transgendered, about sexuality, gender, and how
much things have changed in twenty years.
I probably talked more that night than during all of my high school years.
No one had a negative word, and many, many people voiced their
support.
My high school reunion marked a real turning point in my own coming out.
I had spent all of my high school years terrified that someone would
discover my queerness. Now, finally, I was taking control of my
life, and emerging as a strong and proud transgendered person.
Derrick Fulton took the photo at the top of this page, on the second night
of the reunion. The other photo is from my high school yearbook,
the way that people knew me as a grade-twelve student in 1977.
[
Reunion 1
|
Reunion 2
|
This Is Now
|
That Was Then
]
This page was last 
on September 8, 1998
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