Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is doing everything in her power to escalate the culture war in her province. This fall, she plans to introduce sweeping, polarizing policy changes affecting transgender and non-binary youth, imposing limits on gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for teens. She spelled them all out earlier this year in an extraordinarily detailed seven-minute video.
One trans Calgarian woman, Abby Tickell, has been watching the battle over trans issues from a unique vantage point. For Maclean’s, she describes what it was like coming out late in life. Her experience sounds a bit like the TV show Transparent: “At the age of 66, I came out to my wife. We’d been married for about 18 years, and she had no idea that I was trans—that’s how well I’d hidden it.”
Tickell marvels at the joy she finds in a proud community of trans seniors and compares her experience to what Alberta youth are facing today: “When I came out at 66, I was financially independent with kids and grandkids. Many young people don’t have those financial and social supports. I see queer and trans kids today as trailblazers.”
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
