Transgender child makes Vancouver Magazine's 50 most powerful list BY DANA GEE, THE PROVINCE NOVEMBER 17, 2015
Province reporter Dana Gee speaks with Tru Wilson, a 12-year-old trans girl, who Vancouver Magazine named on of the city's top influencers.
VANCOUVER — Whenever a list of powerful Vancouverites is pulled together, you can guarantee a lot of the spots will be filled with suits.
Developer guys in suits, real-estate guys in suits, sports-team-owning guys in suits, politicians in suits and restaurant guys in suits. There are women in suits, too, but for the most part guys in suits.
But this year’s Vancouver Magazine Power 50 list, while still loving a lot of guys in suits, has branched out with its pick of a 12-year-old transgender girl named Tru Wilson in spot No. 12.
Wilson was in the news, although as Tracey Wilson, a year ago when a human-rights complaint was filed on her behalf against Sacred Heart School and Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdioceses when her school declined to treat her as a girl.
The complaint was settled through mediation in the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and resulted in local Catholic schools changing their policies to allow for students to have their gender identity accommodated.
“It just goes to show a little voice can go a long way,” said Wilson.
Wilson feels it’s important to keep talking about being transgender — to stand up and out as a kid who is dealing with a big issue.
“I love talking about me being trans,” said Wilson, who now attends Ladner Elementary with her two younger siblings. “I feel like it is an interesting subject to talk about and I feel I want my friends to know all of me, not just half of me. I want it to be more of a regular thing than just kind of a, ‘Wow, you’re trans,’ thing.”
For Tru’s mom, Michelle Wilson, having her daughter singled out on a most-powerful list was exciting, shocking and thought-provoking.
“Honestly, it left me feeling like maybe we should be doing more to warrant being on a list like this. But also I think it says a lot about our community and a lot about just the age that we are in and how this issue has come to the forefront — and how important it is to stand up and do something no matter how big or small you are,” Michelle said.
As for the future, Wilson is a kid and plans on doing kid things, but she also has plans to reach out to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and talk about gender rights.
“Gender should be in the (Canadian Human Rights Act) because right now at this very moment someone could get fired because they are transgender,” Wilson said. “Gay is in there and I appreciate that. But gender rights are not, and that’s kind of a fear because what if I get a job I really love and I get a new boss and he’s like, ‘Oh, you’re transgender, get out.’ That would be legal and I can’t do anything about it.”
For now.
http://vanmag.com/best-of-the-city/20-tru-wilson/“I remember when I was in kindergarten, the teacher got a new dollhouse,” says Tru Wilson, a bright-eyed 12-year-old with shiny braces on her front teeth. “I started playing with the dolls, and one of my guy friends was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Playing with the dollies.’ He’s like, ‘But that’s not what boys do.’ And I’m thinking, yeah, but I’m not a boy.”
“At first we thought Trey was gay,” says Michelle Wilson, a graphic artist. She and her husband, Garfield, an actor and personal trainer, share their Ladner home with their three children and a dog. Having grown up in a Jamaican household in Edmonton, Garfield—macho and muscular—at first had trouble accepting that his son was not a little version of himself. Michelle was caught between not wanting her child to be bullied, and wanting her to be able to live as her true self.
One day Trey told his teacher at Sacred Heart elementary in Delta that he was “a girly-boy.” The vice-principal called Michelle and said, “We’re a little concerned with the language your son is using. You might want to tone that stuff down.”
Instead, understanding that Trey had gender dysphoria, the Wilsons began lobbying the school to let her attend as
a girl. The school firmly refused. Garfield was polite and rational in the discussions, thinking that would yield the best results. Michelle got quietly furious that he was treating school officials with the respect and consideration they were failing to show their child. “There was a lot of stress,” says Garfield. “It put our marriage in a rocky place.”
“They kept asking for supporting material from doctors,” says Tru. “When we gave it to them, they’d ask for an opinion from a doctor they chose.” Then they wanted a third opinion. “Then they played the religion card,” says Garfield. Recognizing a transgender child, they said, would go against Catholic teachings. Tru was living as a girl at home, at her dance class, on her basketball team. “Then I had to go to school and pretend to be a boy.”
“We wanted her to be able to wear the girl’s uniform and they just shut us right down,” says Michelle. “I remember sitting in the parking lot after one meeting, bawling my eyes out, thinking, so this is what it’s going to be like.”
Tru transferred to a public school, and the Wilsons filed a human rights complaint. “We wanted a policy in place so that other kids wouldn’t have to go through what we did,” says Michelle. The Catholic School Board was finally pressured into developing such a policy; the Vancouver School Board was already working on one. Meanwhile, an interview on Global TV, which the family posted on Facebook, became a way to let everyone hear their story in a safe way. “We had no idea what the reaction would be,” says Michelle. “Would people shun us? Which friends would be left standing? Would we have to move?”
On the contrary. They were amazed by how open and supportive friends, family, and even strangers were. “It was overwhelming,” says Michelle. “Even Garfield’s parents, who are pretty traditional, said, ‘We don’t understand it, but we love you and support you.’” A year later, as the Vanouver Parks Board was developing a transgender policy, they asked Tru to be a poster child. A photo of Tru and her parents now appears on Parks & Recreation posters around in the city.
It wasn’t until the whole family was benefitting from therapy that they began taking comfort in the realization that normalcy and conformity don’t move the world forward. “If you look back,” says Garfield, “you see that people who make a real difference usually go through hardships along the way.”
Gender identity is the social-justice issue of our time, brought into focus, and media prominence, by the likes of Chelsea Manning, Laverne Cox on Orange is the New Black, Jazz Jennings on the reality show I Am Jazz, Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair—and by a child at a Catholic School in Delta who knew she belonged in a girl’s uniform.
“I didn’t expect to be on posters and people recognizing me and making a difference for other kids,” says Tru. “I just wanted to be me.”
We should never forget Galileo being put before the Inquisition.
It would be even worse if we allowed scientific orthodoxy to become the Inquisition.
Richard Smith, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal 1991-2004,
in a published letter to Nature
