Lisa Salazar is a Canadian transgender advocate, graphic designer, photographer, educator, and author whose life story is a testament to resilience, courage, and the pursuit of authenticity. She has devoted most of her professional life to working as a self-employed graphic designer, navigating the challenges of underemployment while maintaining her dedication to creative excellence and personal integrity. Lisa is the author of Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life, a heartfelt and insightful account of her journey through gender transition, personal growth, and the search for self-acceptance. Transitioning at the age of fifty-eight, she faced profound emotional, social, and spiritual challenges, including reconciling her Christian faith with her gender identity, confronting societal prejudices, and overcoming personal fears. Despite these obstacles, she found a sense of authenticity and peace that has become central to her life.
Lisa’s advocacy work began almost inadvertently, sparked by public speaking engagements and writing OpEds that drew attention to transgender rights and issues in Canada. She has used her voice to educate communities, challenge misconceptions, and promote understanding both within the LGBT+ umbrella and among broader audiences, often highlighting the unique struggles faced by transgender individuals. Her work is deeply personal, informed by her experiences as a mother, a former spouse, and a member of multiple faith and cultural communities. Beyond activism, Lisa dedicates herself to helping transgender individuals and their families navigate the complex social, medical, and emotional aspects of transition, combining compassion with practical advice. Her journey has also emphasized the importance of health, self-care, and perseverance, demonstrating that even later in life, transformation and fulfillment are possible. Through her writing, advocacy, and everyday example, Lisa inspires others to live authentically, confront challenges with courage, and embrace the fullness of their identity.
Monika: Hello Lisa! I’m so glad you’re here. Please make yourself comfortable and feel at home.
Lisa: Hi Monika, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to share my story with you and your readers.
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"Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life" (2011) - Amazon. |
Lisa: I have been a self-employed graphic designer all of my professional life. Unfortunately, my current work situation is very different from what it was five years ago, as I am now severely underemployed. I attribute this to four reasons. First, my client base has slowly shrunk as many of my clients, who are about the same age as me, have retired. Second, the economic slowdown has made finding new clients and employment very difficult. Third, my age, I am 62. And fourth, being transgender can be a liability when it comes to doing business.
Monika: How are you adapting to these changes in your professional life?
Lisa: In the absence of graphic design work, I have decided to go back to school this coming September to pursue a master's degree in Pastoral Care and learn how to offer faith-based support to transgender persons and their families. I believe there is a need for this, and I hope to contribute and help in some way.
Monika: You have extensive experience in transgender advocacy. Can you tell us how you first became involved in this work and what motivated you to speak out?
Lisa: Let me first explain that I am a reluctant advocate. When I transitioned five years ago, I had the notion I would be living the rest of my life in complete obscurity and privacy. I was going to go stealth, hide, and blend into the woodwork. If I had my way, nobody would need to know anything about my past.
Monika: Did things turn out the way you had planned?
Lisa: It didn’t quite work out that way. Six months after my surgery in the spring of 2010, a friend asked me to be one of the presenters at an event called “Interesting Vancouver.” He wanted me to share my story and told me I would have fifteen minutes to do it. This seemed completely preposterous to me. Here I was trying to be a private person, and accepting this invitation to speak to three hundred people seemed like a sure way to torpedo my privacy rowboat out of the water forever.
Monika: How did you feel when you faced this situation, and what did it make you realize?
Lisa: I had a moment of crisis trying to decide what to do, but this forced me to see the futility of trying to hide my past. More importantly, I thought about what all my attempts to hide my past would communicate to my three sons, that their existence was a liability to me. God forbid they would ever feel that way. They are the most important legacy of my life, and I love them more than my life. I know this is a long answer to your question, but it is the only way I can explain how I became an advocate. The experience of sharing my story publicly surprised me because I found that I had a voice, and shockingly, what I had to say was of interest to people. And the further realization was how opinionated I really am.
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| Lisa in 2008. |
Monika: Your experience as an advocate seems to have developed in unexpected ways. Can you tell us how you first got involved in public advocacy for transgender rights?
Lisa: Case in point, a couple of years ago I wrote a short comment to the editors of The Province, one of the two major newspapers in Vancouver, about my opinion regarding the transgender rights bill making its way through the Canadian Parliament.
Monika: What happened after you submitted that comment?
Lisa: Whatever it was I said caught the eye of the editor, and I was invited to write an OpEd on the topic. It was published the following week. A few days later, a radio station called to invite me to talk about what I had written. This, you could say, is how my inadvertent advocacy was born.
Monika: Can you tell us more about the bill and its significance for transgender rights in Canada?
Lisa: With respect to the proposed legislation to extend protections on the basis of gender identity and gender expression, Canada is really close to passing the current version of the bill. Bill C-279, as it is called, has passed in the House of Commons and is now in the Canadian Senate. Unfortunately, the Senate has a Conservative majority, and the bill could still die and never become law. If passed, this bill will provide federal protection from discrimination and violence on the basis of gender identity and expression.
Monika: How does this federal bill relate to provincial legislation, and why is it important?
Lisa: A couple of Canadian provinces have already passed this kind of legislation to amend their respective human rights codes, but we really need explicit language in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so all transgender and gender-variant persons in Canada will enjoy this level of protection. I am hoping 2013 will be the year Canada passes this important law.
Monika: Political advocacy often requires coordination among different groups. How effective do you think the Canadian transgender community has been in working together to achieve its goals?
Lisa: Canada is a big country, geographically speaking. From my perspective, this has resulted in a very fractured and disjointed transgender community. Ontario and Nova Scotia, the two provinces that have recently passed the laws I mentioned above, seem to have cohesive organization and interaction within their borders, but I see no national movement that speaks for all Canadian trans folk.
Monika: Are there individuals or efforts within Canada that are making a noticeable impact despite this fragmentation?
Lisa: That is not to say there is no discussion or lobbying taking place, because many individuals have invested a lot of time and energy to support and promote Bill C-279, and they need to be thanked for their tireless efforts. I look enviously at organizations like the National Center for Transgender Equality in the United States and wish we had a Canadian equivalent.
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| Lisa in 2010. |
Monika: Lisa, the transgender community is often included under the broader LGBT umbrella. In your experience, how well are transgender issues represented and advocated for within this larger community?
Lisa: As a newcomer to this LGBT club, I was dismayed to see just how dismissed the Ts were by the other letter holders. It still comes as a shock to me when I give workshops and a gay or lesbian person admits they did not understand how different and difficult life was for trans people and thanks me for helping them finally get it.
Monika: Why do you think transgender issues are often overlooked or misunderstood within the LGBT community?
Lisa: I was under the erroneous impression that the LGBT umbrella was a happy collection of people. Then you read the statistics that many organizations that claim to be LGBT do not even have a transgender person on their board of directors, and though they include the T in their name, they really do nothing on behalf of gender-variant persons.
Monika: Are there any organizations in Canada that are beginning to address this issue?
Lisa: This is as true in Canada as it is everywhere else. The Vancouver Pride Society has recognized this deficiency and, to their credit, has installed trans people on their board and is making a real effort to be more inclusive of trans people. However, this is very recent, as they have been around for a long time.
Monika: Harvey Milk had a tremendous impact on gay rights activism in the United States. Are there any figures in the Canadian transgender community whose work or influence could be compared to his?
Lisa: Harvey Milk was a very iconic person, it's hard to find too many individuals who have his stature. As I said, I am a newcomer to this scene, having lived the first fifty-eight years of my life deeply closeted. I know of no one that I can think of on a Canadian national level who has had the kind of impact Harvey Milk had in the U.S. and the world. I apologize to any Canadian who may be deserving of recognition, I just don’t know if any exists.
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| Lisa in 2011. |
Monika: You have lived in Colombia, the United States, and Canada. Based on your experiences, how would you describe the situation of transgender women in these countries today?
Lisa: I only have direct experience in Canada and anecdotal knowledge of Colombia and the United States. It is undeniable that Canadian trans persons have it far better than their Colombian and American brothers and sisters.
Monika: What challenges do transgender women still face in Canada despite these advantages?
Lisa: Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go in Canada as a whole. Once you leave the larger urban centers, you will find a lack of trans-friendly services and pockets of intolerance where any gender variance is likely to result in some form of negative reaction. The challenges faced by trans persons are as real in Canada as anywhere.
Monika: How does employment and systemic discrimination affect transgender people in Canada?
Lisa: From my conversations with others, it can be said that we are underemployed and we experience silent discrimination that is systemic. I have experienced it myself, and as I shared earlier when talking about my career.
Monika: Can you share an example of this kind of discrimination and how it might be addressed?
Lisa: For example, I know of at least one client who hired someone else to replace me for a large project. It turns out he was worried about the optics. He projected his own prejudice on his staff and customers when he expressed concerns about my presence in their office. He didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. I didn’t find this out for several months; it wasn’t until one of his assistants confessed this to me. How can you fight that kind of discrimination? The answer is through education and advocacy, even if it is only one person at a time.
Monika: At what age did you begin your transition, and what were some of the initial challenges you faced during this process?
Lisa: I was fifty-eight years old when I transitioned. That was almost five years ago, in the summer of 2008. By that time, I had already lost about 15 kilos and undergone 200 hours of electrolysis to remove my beard. I wanted to attract as little attention to myself as possible, and it was important to me to present as authentically as possible for my age group.
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| Lisa in 2011. |
Monika: How did you prepare yourself to present authentically, and did you model your appearance on other women?
Lisa: Being a very visual person, I studied women my age whom I found attractively dressed and took mental notes of what they wore to work, to go shopping, and so on. In this regard, I did not go through delayed adolescence. I never purchased or wore a mini-skirt nor tried to look like a teenager. In my opinion, there is nothing more pathetic than a sixty-year-old woman trying to look half her age, so imagine how sad it is to see a trans person trying to pull it off.
Monika: What was it like going out in public for the first time as a woman?
Lisa: Even though I lined up my ducks the best I could, I was terrified about the prospect of going out in public as a female. Unlike some trans persons I have met, I never went out in public cross-dressed. I knew little to nothing about how to apply make-up, and I didn't have an extensive wardrobe.
Monika: How did the first months of living full-time as a woman feel for you emotionally?
Lisa: Purchasing clothing became easier with time, but the first three to four months of living full-time were full of panic attacks. I came home so tightly wound up and scared that I thought I was going to throw up. Transitioning was no cakewalk for me.
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Lisa Salazar.
© 2013 - Monika Kowalska
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