John Odo wanted boobs from the age of nine. “And not just boobs but a
vagina too,” he said. “Actually one of my biggest focuses is womanly
hips. I really want to have wide, big hips.”
Odo isn’t gay, or a transvestite, even though the thirty-something
frequently wears women’s garb. Nor is John Odo a male…psychologically speaking.

Odo is a transsexual, a person whose
psychological gender doesn’t match the biological body he or she were
born with. Odo has spent her life struggling to reconcile her female identity with her manly parts and plumbing. The struggle proved difficult especially as a teenager in Nova Scotia, when she would dress as a boy in school and as a girl for the movies.

“The same bullies that would beat me up for being a faggot at school were hitting on me thinking I was some girl from out of town.”
When faced with society’s rigid rules of normality, growing up with the wrong bodily bits can be a horrifying experience. Many guys would think it a nightmare to wake up with breasts, but that is what transsexual males (biological females) endure during puberty. For transsexual females (biological males) like Odo, the penis dangling
between their legs can be equally distressing.

Transsexuals are marginalized and ridiculed even within the gay community, and as a group transsexuals experience higher rates of depression, self-hurting (like cutting), and suicide. “Because of the transphobic world that we live in, we don’t always
have the chance to fully blossom and be in touch with who we are,” said Rupert Raj, a psychotherapist and transsexual male who had sex-reassignment surgery to his male body in the 70s. Raj is a counsellor at the Sherbourne Health Centre, a facility with a growing reputation for their trans-positive stance and resources for transsexuals looking for answers. “We’re sex affirmative, gay affirming, and gender affirming. If
someone says they are trans we accept them on their self-report.”

Odo has been coming to the Sherbourne Health Centre seeking information about hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Transsexuals of
both sexes use HRT to better align their bodies with their gender identities.
By flooding her body with female estrogens, Odo will induce a second puberty, female this time around.

And although the estrogens will not completely undo the effects of her
first male puberty, they will give her the big hips and breasts she has always wanted, as well as a few other feminine charms (see
illustration).

However, some psychiatrists say that in some cases it is wiser to align the mind with the body, instead of the body with the mind. Some psychologists have an entirely different name for transsexualism:
Gender Identity Disorder (GID).

“GID, transsexual, gender dysphoria, all these terms are more or less
describing the same group of people,” said Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health who studies GID in children. His office door is plastered with pictures of smiling
stick figures drawn by children, some saying “Dr. Zucker is cool,” and “Thank you for helping me.”

“Parents worry that [their kids] are unhappy about their gender, that this might mean they’re gay or that they have other emotional problems,” said Zucker, who aims not to change a child’s sexual
orientation, but to help them resolve their “gender confusion.”

“I think ultimately the goal is to help the person make the best adaptation to life. If somebody can grow up being comfortable in their own skin, why would you not want to help them?”

GID could have many causes, including the family situation and genetic factors. Zucker spends a lot of time with kids assessing whether they actually have GID (are transsexual), if they’re gay, or if they’re
just going through a phase.

“What we do a lot nowadays is put them on puberty-blocking medications which stops their physical masculinization/feminization, which for some kids gives them more time to think about their gender issues and
to decide which is the right way to go.”
Raj does not approve of those who pathologize transsexualism as a disorder.

“Trans[sexual] people aren’t broken, and they don’t need to be fixed-other than hormones or surgery,” said Raj.

Odo will have to go under the knife for the vagina she longs for, an expensive and complicated procedure. “It’s the only way I can replace the M on my ID with an F,” said Odo. “Once that F is on my ID I can use any bathroom with a lady on it.”

“The more like a woman I act and look, the more the world will accept
me as one.”