Megan and Baker, Winnipeg
Identity: Transgender woman
'When I started to question my gender I decided to travel across the country with Baker in a school bus that I’d converted into a motorhome. I spent 6 months in a forest near a little oceanside town reflecting on my life and what it might look like for someone like me. Every 2 weeks I would make the 7 hour round trip to Courtenay BC to attend therapy sessions to help me actualize my identity and to figure out how to come out as trans.
During my therapy sessions, Baker would lay beside me on the floor, occasionally getting up and leaning against my leg or putting her head on my lap. She didn’t know what I was going through but she knew I was going through it. After the sessions we would always stop for a pup cup, a dog friendly cookie and a swim in one of the many beautiful Vancouver Island lakes on the journey home.
When I finally came out, I stopped being a workaholic. I realised that when I had stopped using substances and alcohol to cope with my gender dysphoria I had simply replaced one addiction with another. Welcoming Baker into my life shifted my mindset from one of avoiding issues by constantly working to spending quality time with Baker actually enjoying life. Baker has taught me that life is really a lot simpler than the complexity that we make it, that patience is a virtue and that sometimes we need to smell every single spot on the grass instead of going distances.
I’ve definitely faced challenges as a trans woman, specifically in the field that I love working in - the automotive repair industry. Whilst I had many allies during shop hours, transition delivered a noticeable decline in invites to work social events. The exclusion spoke volumes, and really about them because we still had the same great relationship at work, I was still the same person they had always known and joked about with, but they now felt shame around being seen with me in public.
Thankfully, a huge part of my life has always been skateboarding and now I teach motorcycle repair to 2SLGBTQ and BIPOC communities and both of these communities have actively embraced me. Skateboarding, teaching, my partners and Baker have become the most rewarding and loving parts of my life. All of the fear around transition is gone, my only wish is that I’d known sooner that transitioning would be the best gift I could ever give to myself.'