by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

It's time to understand, accept and celebrate our local trans community, and to do so you're invited to an all-day enlightening session this Saturday, April 30, to witness some of the eye-popping challenges and realities of those who have chosen to live in a gender they were not born into.

The second annual Trans Day of Pride promises to be a bigger than its inaugural year, according to organizer Daniel Chégnier, but the aim remains the same. "The idea is to sensitize people about the community and bring mainstream people closer to the realities of the trans community. We also want to show other trans that they're not alone. It's a minority community and there are some people who are more solitary - they don't all live in the gay community. We want to show that they're not alone in the world. We want to demystify transsexuality and discuss people's experiences, from workplace issues and beyond."

One not-to-be-missed moment will be at 2:45 p.m. when Roger-James (who asked the Mirror not use his last name for reasons of privacy), a university student who was born here as a female, plans to spill the beans on the lighter side of his transformation into malehood.

"I'm going to be making fun of the whole transition," says Roger-James. "I'm going through it myself and I know how difficult it is, and one of the best ways to deal with it is to laugh at it. The medical services, the suicide rates, these are really bad. People tend to learn and listen more when you make them laugh."

Sin, sex and surgery

Roger-James has been on male hormones for a year and faces some difficult choices between surgeries that can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $100,000, a daunting bill for someone with student loan payments to look forward to.

"Ideally I'd like to get the [most expensive] surgery if I can pull the money out of my ass," he says. "And hopefully my cock doesn't get infected and fall off."

And to get employment to pay for it all, Roger-James will have to apply for jobs under his female birthname. According to Quebec law, considered less generous than Ontario's, he must provide proof of having lived in his chosen gender for five years before officially presenting himself under a male name and gender.

Some humour helps. "To help myself pass for a man, I have a fake cock. Various people use different methods to put it in their briefs. I have a harness. It slipped out one day while I was walking along Ste-Catherine in front of a Tim Horton's. I think I managed to cover it up by pretending to sneeze."

Show up at 1:45 p.m. and you can catch Viviane Namaste, a Women's Studies prof at Con U's Simone de Beauvoir Institute, talk about her recently released book C'était du spectacle! which looks at local gender-bending entertainers from 1955 to 1985.

The book took 10 years of going through old newspapers and 14 in-depth interviews from transvestite performers who starred here before the cabaret scene waned in the early '70s.

"Lana St-Cyr was known as the first transvestite in Quebec and she opened the doors for others to dance, although religious organizations like the Soeurs-du-Sacré-Coeur tried to put a stop to her shows," says Namaste. "They got the police to charge her with giving an indecent performance and she went before a judge and was cleared in 1962." [The first sex change operation in Montreal was in 1971.]

"The women I interviewed say they were treated very well," says Namaste. "There was a lot of interest and the clubs also knew that they were making money with them as artists."

Prejudice then and now

And yet arrest constantly loomed. "It was illegal for males to dress as women before 1969, so some of the women I interviewed recounted how some others did prison time - up to a year in prison just for dressing as a woman in the street."

Namaste says prejudices endure. "I think there's great discrimination against transsexuals in terms of employment and housing," she says. "People are often refused services or employment. We have this ongoing debate on whether or not gay people can marry - the transsexual issue is way beyond that."

Events take place Saturday, April 30, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Batshaw (6 Weredale, at Dorchester just west of Atwater) and continue from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Café Cabaret Cleopatra (1230 St-Laurent, second floor). For simultaneous translation bring an FM radio with earphone.