Michelle Emson

Transcript

I would like to take you back to a bright sunny day in May of 1997. on that day a young woman Lay Dying in her hospital bed right with pancreatic cancer she was surrounded by her family and passed away just days before her 30th birthday that woman was my sister Sarah Jane six weeks later a dear cousin one of twins about to embark on a worldwide tour backpacking with her sister died instantly in a traffic accident on a Country Road near her hometown in Western England six weeks later Princess Diana would die in another traffic accident in the tunnel in Paris yesterday was transgender day

of remembrance yesterday we acknowledged that 2609 transgender people have been murdered since we began records in January of 2008. this year alone 325 now you may ask why would I be talking about such tragic death and loss when we should be talking about inspiration and you're right I'm going to tell you why you see what I realized as my sister Lay Dying and as we mourned the loss of everyone else there what I realized was that I had the gift of life and more than that I had the choice of what I could do with that life it would be another 10 years before I

would step into my true authentic self another 10 years before I would shed this past that just didn't fit another 10 years before I would step into my own power and why did I do that because I realized that Sarah Jane Louise Princess Diana they don't have that choice in life they didn't have it it was taken away from them abruptly violently in some cases and I had this gift I was living an inauthentic life and I had to do something about it I too have lived with bipolar disorder all of my life it remained undiagnosed until 2015. I had my brush with suicide I

contemplated bringing an end to the life that I was living and the reason I didn't was because I remembered that unlike Sarah Jane I had the option of life I was able to step into myself be truly me I was inspired by the loss of my sister inspired to make a difference inspired to stand out speak up be an advocate become an activist we have the power within us every single one of us to be the change that we want to see in the world if we come to accept truly accept our own uniqueness in all of its glory in all of its diversity then

just maybe we can come to accept the uniqueness of others thank you

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Transcript

standing before you this evening is an outgoing vivacious confident successful woman but it wasn't always this way let me take you back to 1961 don't do the math it was a hard dark cold night March there was snow on the ground and after a few hours of labor my dear poor mother all five feet of her delivered this healthy ten and a half pound baby more now the midwife coddled me in a blanket and proudly presented me to my parents mr. and mrs. Emerson congratulations on your healthy baby boy wait a minute did she just say boy yes you see I was assigned male at

birth and that happened based purely on my genitalia the matter wife actually didn't have enough information to make that assertion at that point because one kind of denote gender and gender doesn't really present itself for at least a couple of years fast forward I'm approaching puberty my body is defying me I've always known deep inside I was a girl you see our gender identity it's what's in our minds in our brains in our head in our soul in our spirit in our essence and in our hearts I always knew who I was but I had no frame of reference think about this there was no

Google you imagine life without Google but when our articles in the newspaper I completely missed Cristina Gerson in 64 because there was just three years old so I had nothing to compare except the people around me and one hanging of my femininity was very quickly admonished in fact my father even used the name Michelle as a derogatory term for whenever I wasn't quite masculine enough and it would take me a long time before I decided to reclaim that name for my own and hold it true as I approached adolescence and my body continued to defy who I truly was inside I discovered another quirk here

I was attracted to women I always had been I was attracted to girls when as much as I was attracted to one I also wanted to be her desperately so i internalized this I internalized it as transphobia I didn't know that term lots of hindsight I self judged I became the pretty depressed I suffered anxiety each and every waking day every hour every minute I was desperately aware of this gender Dyson dysphoria that was holding me back 35 40 years later 2011 was the year that I finally decided to do something about it and when I beard a quote came to me it's a beautiful

quote from Trina Paulus some of you may know it goes like this the little girl asked the wise old woman how does one become a butterfly the old lady pondered this for a second and then replied first must want to fly so much you're prepared to give up being a caterpillar I decided to give up being a caterpillar you say for way too long I've been dressing up in guys clothes got a figure it was time to end all of that but it came at a price and it was an expensive price I lost my wife of 23 years I lost my two children stepchildren

I lost six grandchildren I lost my home my career my pension my money but I had never fell so good and yet the loss was also not my own my wife would say no you are the that stole my husband she was right I was this is my road less traveled it's a road full of twists and turns a road with potholes so big you could park a car in them steep steep hills that I needed to climb and to this day I continue to climb it's not for the faint of heart I promise you I want to leave you with one last thought if

we can come to love and respect and embrace our own uniqueness whatever that is then just maybe we can come to respect the uniqueness of everyone around us thank you very much

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.