When Jessica Billard was three-years-old, she enjoyed doing many of the things girls that age do, playing with dolls, dressing up in girls' clothes.
The only thing is that when she was three-years-old, Jessica Billard was known to the world as Josh Rumley.
I'm often asked why I like my job. It's not the easiest question to answer without boring someone so I usually just say it's because each day you really never know what might happen.
There are days where that is true and there are also days where you feel like pulling the hair out of your head while you wait for someone to call you back or something along those lines. Friday was definitely not one of those days.
Shortly after 11, I was told that someone was here to see me. That person turned out to be Jessica Billard. Jessica had actually stopped by The Mercury office a couple of weeks before to see if we might be interested in doing a story on her and her experiences. I wasn't in that day but I called her back two days later to set up an interview.
We set up a time to meet in a couple of days but when the day arrived Jessica was a no-show. Too bad, I remember thinking. It could have made for an interesting story, I thought, but it was also far from the first time a story didn't pan out.
Then, somewhat out of the blue, Jessica showed up at The Mercury office May 2, ready to talk. Although our schedules clashed again, Jessica made it to our office for an interview Friday and what follows is her story.
Jessica Billard is a transgender woman currently undergoing the transition from male to female. That transition started five months ago and, thus far, has included hormone replacement therapy and breast implant surgery.
But it's probably fair to say her transition began years ago and has been continuing throughout Jessica's life in one form or another. Jessica was born a hermaphrodite, the biological term for a person who is born with both sexual organs.
"I remember when I was nine, me and my brother were in a mall and we went to the bathroom. He went and used the urinal and I went and sat down. I couldn't ever figure out why his genitalia was different than mine," she said. "I asked my parents when I was nine-years-old and they didn't tell me and wouldn't give me an answer. I found out when I was 16, I actually was supposed to have a penis."
Although she had that confusing revelation at nine, Jessica said she remembers being just three-years-old when she felt she wasn't in the right body.
"(I remember) liking girls' stuff, girls' toys, girls' clothes not guys' clothes," Jessica said. "Usually most transgender people, those that identify as transgender, it's normally in their early childhood when they discover it. I used to go over to my family and friends' houses and I used to play with all my cousin's toys but I wouldn't play with boys' toys."
Although there is certainly a lot of debate and controversy surrounding the issue of transgender people, the actual mental condition of this sort of gender confusion is diagnosed by psychologists as gender identity dysphoria disorder.
According to an entry on Wikipedia, the list of criteria is a long-standing and strong identification with another gender as well as an ongoing discomfort with the assigned sex.
Jessica says that gender confusion was a source of great pain and frustration while growing up. She lived life as a boy even though every fibre of her being told her otherwise. Every day of her life, Jessica had to worry about hiding who she truly felt she was from the rest of world. She admits it took a significant toll on her mental well-being.
The hiding of her true self continued until she was 16 when, at the urging of her girlfriend at the time, Jessica finally decided to become what she felt she already was.
"My girlfriend was like 'you can't keep doing this, you are going to go insane,'" she said. "She said 'you want to live and be the person you actually are but you are hiding that person because you are afraid of what will happen.' So when I was 16, I moved 600 kilometres away from my family (in B.C.) and from there on I was me all the time. I didn't own guy clothes or dress or act like a male."
As tough as it was for her, Jessica said taking that fateful step was "like being reborn."
"Everything was gone. It was like hiding and trying to cover it up and cover it up and it got to the point where my life sucked, I was not happy with my life at all. I actually ended up coming very close to committing suicide.
"But I stopped, I stopped hiding. If people don't like me because of who I am, than that is their problem. It's not who I am, it's what I am. To live your life as a lie and try to live two lives is impossible. It's hard enough trying to live one, let alone two. I did it but I was unhappy. I didn't eat properly, I didn't sleep properly it changed how I did everything. It was a lot of stress because mentally my brain is saying no, this isn't who you are and at the time my body appeared as male. My brain just finally pushed and overrode the fear of hiding and being scared of what people think. I just did it."
In September, Jessica made another big decision, moving to Estevan for work reasons. Unfortunately she also decided to go "back into hiding" as she called it, fearful of what people in her new community might think.
That restarted the vicious circle of gender confusion, something that continued until December when she took the significant step of transitioning to a woman and also changed her name to Jessica.
"I was in my house and I'm watching TV and Tyra Banks had on transgender top model. I was watching it and it was like click. I went through everything in my house that night and I threw it all out and the next day I went out and bought makeup, I bought clothes, I bought shoes. If it was girly, I bought it.
"(Items) that I had gotten when I was a guy, I didn't want it in my life because I knew I had gotten when I was the person that I truly ain't. The two big things for people that have transitioned are support and not having things that are going to remind you of that person you aren't. If I have photos at my house of a person that I ain't, it's going to cause stress and an emotional breakdown for me. I'm going to walk by those photos and guaranteed glance at them and go oh, my god, why did I have to be born this way. Why do I have to go though all these struggles, why can't it be easier? So it was easier just to take the memories that were tearing me apart and throw them away."
Although she doesn't regret her decision by any means, Jessica admitted her life hasn't been easy since she began her transition. She has been the subject of rude comments and scorn in public and says two men recently beat her up. Still, her focus remains on making the transition and continuing to find happiness in her life.
"I can't worry about what everybody thinks of me and what everybody says to me," she said. "At the end of the day the only thing I have to worry about is me and making sure that I am happy and I am healthy and I am safe. I don't have the time or the patience to get stressed out and go home and say, this person called me this today and did this.
"I hope people might see (this article) and they get that little piece of the story of my life and say 'we have been treating this person like crap and we didn't even know this person.'"
Despite the abuse she has endured, Jessica said she has no intention of stopping her transition. She is excited about the future and expects by the same time next year she will look vastly different. Most important of all she will finally be in the body, and be the person, she always felt she meant to be.
"My life's happy. My life is awesome."
