[Applause]
I’m Ali Michael Cannon and I’m here to
talk to you today about my transgender
journey my story of becoming a man
because I wasn’t always the man you see
standing here before you because I was
assigned the gender identity female at
birth
I grew up in the 60s and 70s I’m 53
years old today and grew up in Los
Angeles California in the San Fernando
Valley and when I was growing up in my
elementary and middle school in high
school people never talked about lesbian
and gay people and they certainly never
talked about transgender people but I
did have somewhat of a different gender
identity as a kid so I did have a tomboy
childhood and it was safe to have a
little bit more of a masculine identity
as a kid growing up so I grew up and I
liked to climb trees and I liked to play
sports and I was very lucky to have a
brother who also supported me in being
who I was in elementary school I had two
friends who also identified as Tom boys
who were girls but neither of them grew
up to be men and they are both women
today I know that from Facebook and
so what was different about my gender
journey well for one I remember a
profound story that happened to me in
elementary school and my mother took me
to the boys department to buy wide whale
corduroy pants and it was an amazing
experience for me because those pants
felt like a reflection of my gender and
they allowed me to express myself in
addition to my tomboy identity and it
was like I had a reflection of myself by
being given that permission so in
elementary school I felt comfortable in
my gender and I got to climb trees as I
said and build secret hideouts with my
friends and then when I got to middle
school things became a lot more
difficult the pressure to conform and
fit in and perform gender in
expectations the way girls would be
according to the feminine expression of
the time was a lot of pressure from me
and I couldn’t conform to that I didn’t
have the right clothes it was really
hard for me to fit in and at my in
middle school which for me started in
seventh grade I experienced a lot of
ostracization and bullying in my middle
school girls would gather in the quad in
our middle school and they would form
circles and if they didn’t like you they
would push you out and they wouldn’t
allow you to talk to them and that’s
what happened to me girls that were my
friends in elementary school stopped
talking to me and they wouldn’t let me
join their conversations and so I ended
up with only one friend in middle school
who was also kept out of those same
circles and so it was kind of a lonely
and isolating time for me and I think
that that was a lot had to do with not
fitting in to expectations of how girls
were supposed to be at that time so then
I went to high school where things got a
little bit better I had more friends but
there was still a lot of pressure to fit
in and conform to gender norms and
so in high school I did things like
I was part of the prom fashion show and
I wore a big blue poofy dress and I felt
extremely awkward and I was really
uncomfortable basically being forced to
kind of fit in and then when I was in
high school right before my senior year
actually I fell in love with a woman for
the first time but it was a very kind of
hidden and I was basically in the closet
about that and then in about midway
through my senior year I came out to one
friend I told her that I was in love
with this girl that I met that summer
and she said yeah I kind of knew that
which was sort of a relief for me but
that was the only time I really uh turd
that and I really kind of stayed in the
closet after that and then I went to
college I attended college here at UC
Berkeley which I consider my first
coming out and they’re in college at UC
Berkeley I joined a sorority which is
basically a Greek organization it’s a
large group of women I had been part of
a Girl Scout troop in high school which
was also a big group of women so I knew
I liked being around big groups in way
and I so being a part of that
organization ended up being very
difficult in my sophomore year when I
met my first girlfriend so I had my
first relationship with a woman and they
are at UC Berkeley in in 1982 I was put
on trial for being gay I basically was
charged with behavior unbecoming a
member of the sorority that causes
embarrassment to the house or chapter
members and a hundred of my peers all
women in the sorority along with some
adult women who are alumni of the
organization all voted on me and decided
that I was to be punished for being gay
I had to hide my identity it was
basically like the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
policy if some of you know about that
that used to be part of the US military
policy and I I was penalized for being
gay and and over time the the
persecution became even more intense and
I was a victim of institutionalized
homophobia eventually I left the
sorority as the persecution continued my
girlfriend and I would walk around
campus people would point at us and say
the derogatory comments yes eventually I
dropped out of college because of that
persecution and after being out of
college for a year I went back to school
to UC Santa Cruz where my brother was
also a student my younger brother and
there I became a Women’s Studies major
and I can’t had a whole other level of
acceptance and coming out into lesbian
feminist community I was part of a
community that dealt with all forms of
oppression in my college experience from
racism to homophobia to sexism and
anti-semitism but no one at my school
ever talked about gender identity I
never heard of anyone who was born
female transitioning to male and
eventually in my lesbian identity
formation I adopted a butch identity or
a masculine lesbian identity
that’s how identified for over 13 years
until I met my wife Jessica who helped
me come out as the man I am today she’s
bisexual so she embraces all sexualities
and she’s always been attracted to
masculine identified people and so what
started to happen to me and my 30s is
that my gender identity started to shift
and so for example I would go into a
grocery store and people would call me
sue which happened to me as a lesbian
too and when it happened to me as a
lesbian I was like all right this person
is never really seen a masculine woman
before and they’re kind of mistaking my
gender and it really didn’t bother me
but as my gender started to evolve when
someone would call me ma’am it would
make me feel like I wanted to hide in my
pocket versus if they called me sir I
felt like I was being reflected and so
then a kind of cool thing happened in
1999 Jesse and I traveled to Israel or
both Jewish and at that time I needed to
get a passport so I applied for a
passport and I submitted my passport
application I checked the female box on
my application I said it submitted my
birth certificate which at the time said
I was female born female and I submitted
a headshot of myself and I had a pretty
short haircut at the time kind of a
military crew-cut and I sent my
application off for my passport and six
weeks later my passport came back with
an M on it so someone in the federal
government had decided that I was a man
and this was basically like a mystical
experience for me
it was like the universe was trying to
tell me something that I was on a
journey to becoming male so I was
starting to question my gender identity
and here I was traveling to Israel with
a passport saying that
I was a man so we went to Israel for
three weeks
and the whole time I was there I was
perceived as male many of the places
that we went as an example of that in
Israel there are a lot of religious
sites that you can visit and at those
sites they have security checkpoints and
if you’re a man they give you a yarmulke
the little like beanie that Orthodox
Jewish man wear on their heads and if
you’re a woman they give you like a
wraparound skirt to cover your legs to
show modesty because women have to show
that their mod is kind of similar to
Muslim women as well and so everywhere
we went I never got given the skirt
garment Jessica always got given the
wraparound skirt it was hot in the
summer she was often wearing shorts and
I only got given the yarmulke and that
would have been true regardless of your
race or ethnicity they would perceive
you it decide whether you’re male or
female passing through those gates so
that was that was really intense for me
and in addition to that I went to what’s
called the Wailing Wall or hotel and I
took our lesbian friends three-year-old
son up with me to the wall and that wall
is also divided into a men’s section and
a women’s section and that was a very
spiritual experience for me I was
surrounded by all of these all of these
men people from all over the world and
it’s a tradition to write a note and put
it in the wall and I wrote a note for
transgender people and this is all part
of my early coming-out process and so
when I came back I knew I needed support
so I sought out female to male support
groups for people born female
questioning their gender and for people
who had already decided to live as men
and in that group for close to two years
I I tried to figure out what was my
gender and after two years of basically
like a second puberty with a lot of
angst-ridden questions going on inside I
decide
that I wanted to live as a man and so in
2001 I started taking hormones
testosterone to help my body match my
gender identity and I basically never
been happier than being a man and having
my gender feel whole inside I’m now a
proud father and husband in 2001 Jessica
that’s my wife we were married in our
wedding invitation we announced to many
of our friends who didn’t already know
that I was transitioning that I was
becoming a man and I was I was
transgender and we had a big Jewish
wedding and celebrated our love and also
were able to claim my transition in that
public way I never wanted to be a father
when I actually I never wanted to be a
mother as a woman but I as a dad it that
has felt so right to me and there’s a
couple things I want to say just about
what it is to be transgender and
experiences that I’ve had so for one as
a man I’ve I have to deal with white
male privilege so as a white person and
having white male privilege I need to be
mindful of that I also need to be aware
of how I take up space as a man because
in our society men get access to power
and privilege in really different kinds
of ways for my transgender brothers of
color they have to worry about being
stopped by the police and being followed
in stores which is something that I
don’t have to worry about and so I also
need to show up as an anti-racist Ally
for my transgender brothers of color
I also have noticed some interesting
things in my transition it’s a little
bit harder to cry and this is something
that has been confirmed for me by other
transgender men I know who’ve also taken
testosterone so there’s some biological
differences between men and women it’s
also I also have to be a little more
mindful about angle because being on
testosterone you actually are do have an
easier access to anger and that’s
something I should be mindful of as a
feminist man that’s important to me to
be aware of being quicker to anger and
how I take up space and so my story is
not only my story it’s also my family
story it’s my wife story to tell she’s
an elementary school principal and she
has to choose whether or not to come out
in her professional life
about our family it’s also my son’s
story to tell he’s in middle school
right now and he has to decide when it’s
safe to come out to his friends it’s my
father’s story to tell my dad who’s in
his 80s now was dating in his 70s and he
would often come out to women that he
was dating about his son to see if this
person would be accepting of his family
so it’s my family story to tell as well
as my own and I’m very proud to say that
my family celebrates me as the man I am
in the world today and I’m hoping that
by hearing my story here today you’ll be
inspired to show up as an ally for
transgender people most of you aren’t
going to question your gender identity
but some of you will and it’s become
more common in part because of
transgender people like myself and my
generation and the generation before me
and the generation that’s coming up now
we’re more kids or coming out earlier
and earlier as gender
and you can be an ally by reflecting the
pronouns that we want to be called by by
reflecting the names that transgender
people sometimes choose to change our
name and that’s a way that you can show
up as an ally you can decide to make
your restrooms safe spaces so it’s
actually the law here in California and
your education code that all schools
need to be inclusive and welcome
welcoming of gender non-conforming
people and one way that you can do that
like some LGBTQ youth I know made this
gender fabulous bathroom and at their
school and these are ways that you can
help transgender people feel safe and
included not only in restrooms but in
all places of where we are this is most
recently at the LGBT Pride Parade in San
Francisco I went with my family my kid
made a sign it says my mom’s by my dad’s
trans and I’m proud of my family and I
hope that you will join me in that pride
and celebration of transgender people
now is the time where our community is
under attack in part because of how many
people have come out and it’s become
more there’s been more awareness and
education around transgender live so I
hope that you will as I said be inspired
to show up as allies and stand up for
transgender people when we need your
support and love so thank you for
hearing my story
[Applause]
I’m Ali Michael Cannon and I’m here to
talk to you today about my transgender
journey my story of becoming a man
because I wasn’t always the man you see
standing here before you because I was
assigned the gender identity female at
birth
I grew up in the 60s and 70s I’m 53
years old today and grew up in Los
Angeles California in the San Fernando
Valley and when I was growing up in my
elementary and middle school in high
school people never talked about lesbian
and gay people and they certainly never
talked about transgender people but I
did have somewhat of a different gender
identity as a kid so I did have a tomboy
childhood and it was safe to have a
little bit more of a masculine identity
as a kid growing up so I grew up and I
liked to climb trees and I liked to play
sports and I was very lucky to have a
brother who also supported me in being
who I was in elementary school I had two
friends who also identified as Tom boys
who were girls but neither of them grew
up to be men and they are both women
today I know that from Facebook and
so what was different about my gender
journey well for one I remember a
profound story that happened to me in
elementary school and my mother took me
to the boys department to buy wide whale
corduroy pants and it was an amazing
experience for me because those pants
felt like a reflection of my gender and
they allowed me to express myself in
addition to my tomboy identity and it
was like I had a reflection of myself by
being given that permission so in
elementary school I felt comfortable in
my gender and I got to climb trees as I
said and build secret hideouts with my
friends and then when I got to middle
school things became a lot more
difficult the pressure to conform and
fit in and perform gender in
expectations the way girls would be
according to the feminine expression of
the time was a lot of pressure from me
and I couldn’t conform to that I didn’t
have the right clothes it was really
hard for me to fit in and at my in
middle school which for me started in
seventh grade I experienced a lot of
ostracization and bullying in my middle
school girls would gather in the quad in
our middle school and they would form
circles and if they didn’t like you they
would push you out and they wouldn’t
allow you to talk to them and that’s
what happened to me girls that were my
friends in elementary school stopped
talking to me and they wouldn’t let me
join their conversations and so I ended
up with only one friend in middle school
who was also kept out of those same
circles and so it was kind of a lonely
and isolating time for me and I think
that that was a lot had to do with not
fitting in to expectations of how girls
were supposed to be at that time so then
I went to high school where things got a
little bit better I had more friends but
there was still a lot of pressure to fit
in and conform to gender norms and
so in high school I did things like
I was part of the prom fashion show and
I wore a big blue poofy dress and I felt
extremely awkward and I was really
uncomfortable basically being forced to
kind of fit in and then when I was in
high school right before my senior year
actually I fell in love with a woman for
the first time but it was a very kind of
hidden and I was basically in the closet
about that and then in about midway
through my senior year I came out to one
friend I told her that I was in love
with this girl that I met that summer
and she said yeah I kind of knew that
which was sort of a relief for me but
that was the only time I really uh turd
that and I really kind of stayed in the
closet after that and then I went to
college I attended college here at UC
Berkeley which I consider my first
coming out and they’re in college at UC
Berkeley I joined a sorority which is
basically a Greek organization it’s a
large group of women I had been part of
a Girl Scout troop in high school which
was also a big group of women so I knew
I liked being around big groups in way
and I so being a part of that
organization ended up being very
difficult in my sophomore year when I
met my first girlfriend so I had my
first relationship with a woman and they
are at UC Berkeley in in 1982 I was put
on trial for being gay I basically was
charged with behavior unbecoming a
member of the sorority that causes
embarrassment to the house or chapter
members and a hundred of my peers all
women in the sorority along with some
adult women who are alumni of the
organization all voted on me and decided
that I was to be punished for being gay
I had to hide my identity it was
basically like the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
policy if some of you know about that
that used to be part of the US military
policy and I I was penalized for being
gay and and over time the the
persecution became even more intense and
I was a victim of institutionalized
homophobia eventually I left the
sorority as the persecution continued my
girlfriend and I would walk around
campus people would point at us and say
the derogatory comments yes eventually I
dropped out of college because of that
persecution and after being out of
college for a year I went back to school
to UC Santa Cruz where my brother was
also a student my younger brother and
there I became a Women’s Studies major
and I can’t had a whole other level of
acceptance and coming out into lesbian
feminist community I was part of a
community that dealt with all forms of
oppression in my college experience from
racism to homophobia to sexism and
anti-semitism but no one at my school
ever talked about gender identity I
never heard of anyone who was born
female transitioning to male and
eventually in my lesbian identity
formation I adopted a butch identity or
a masculine lesbian identity
that’s how identified for over 13 years
until I met my wife Jessica who helped
me come out as the man I am today she’s
bisexual so she embraces all sexualities
and she’s always been attracted to
masculine identified people and so what
started to happen to me and my 30s is
that my gender identity started to shift
and so for example I would go into a
grocery store and people would call me
sue which happened to me as a lesbian
too and when it happened to me as a
lesbian I was like all right this person
is never really seen a masculine woman
before and they’re kind of mistaking my
gender and it really didn’t bother me
but as my gender started to evolve when
someone would call me ma’am it would
make me feel like I wanted to hide in my
pocket versus if they called me sir I
felt like I was being reflected and so
then a kind of cool thing happened in
1999 Jesse and I traveled to Israel or
both Jewish and at that time I needed to
get a passport so I applied for a
passport and I submitted my passport
application I checked the female box on
my application I said it submitted my
birth certificate which at the time said
I was female born female and I submitted
a headshot of myself and I had a pretty
short haircut at the time kind of a
military crew-cut and I sent my
application off for my passport and six
weeks later my passport came back with
an M on it so someone in the federal
government had decided that I was a man
and this was basically like a mystical
experience for me
it was like the universe was trying to
tell me something that I was on a
journey to becoming male so I was
starting to question my gender identity
and here I was traveling to Israel with
a passport saying that
I was a man so we went to Israel for
three weeks
and the whole time I was there I was
perceived as male many of the places
that we went as an example of that in
Israel there are a lot of religious
sites that you can visit and at those
sites they have security checkpoints and
if you’re a man they give you a yarmulke
the little like beanie that Orthodox
Jewish man wear on their heads and if
you’re a woman they give you like a
wraparound skirt to cover your legs to
show modesty because women have to show
that their mod is kind of similar to
Muslim women as well and so everywhere
we went I never got given the skirt
garment Jessica always got given the
wraparound skirt it was hot in the
summer she was often wearing shorts and
I only got given the yarmulke and that
would have been true regardless of your
race or ethnicity they would perceive
you it decide whether you’re male or
female passing through those gates so
that was that was really intense for me
and in addition to that I went to what’s
called the Wailing Wall or hotel and I
took our lesbian friends three-year-old
son up with me to the wall and that wall
is also divided into a men’s section and
a women’s section and that was a very
spiritual experience for me I was
surrounded by all of these all of these
men people from all over the world and
it’s a tradition to write a note and put
it in the wall and I wrote a note for
transgender people and this is all part
of my early coming-out process and so
when I came back I knew I needed support
so I sought out female to male support
groups for people born female
questioning their gender and for people
who had already decided to live as men
and in that group for close to two years
I I tried to figure out what was my
gender and after two years of basically
like a second puberty with a lot of
angst-ridden questions going on inside I
decide
that I wanted to live as a man and so in
2001 I started taking hormones
testosterone to help my body match my
gender identity and I basically never
been happier than being a man and having
my gender feel whole inside I’m now a
proud father and husband in 2001 Jessica
that’s my wife we were married in our
wedding invitation we announced to many
of our friends who didn’t already know
that I was transitioning that I was
becoming a man and I was I was
transgender and we had a big Jewish
wedding and celebrated our love and also
were able to claim my transition in that
public way I never wanted to be a father
when I actually I never wanted to be a
mother as a woman but I as a dad it that
has felt so right to me and there’s a
couple things I want to say just about
what it is to be transgender and
experiences that I’ve had so for one as
a man I’ve I have to deal with white
male privilege so as a white person and
having white male privilege I need to be
mindful of that I also need to be aware
of how I take up space as a man because
in our society men get access to power
and privilege in really different kinds
of ways for my transgender brothers of
color they have to worry about being
stopped by the police and being followed
in stores which is something that I
don’t have to worry about and so I also
need to show up as an anti-racist Ally
for my transgender brothers of color
I also have noticed some interesting
things in my transition it’s a little
bit harder to cry and this is something
that has been confirmed for me by other
transgender men I know who’ve also taken
testosterone so there’s some biological
differences between men and women it’s
also I also have to be a little more
mindful about angle because being on
testosterone you actually are do have an
easier access to anger and that’s
something I should be mindful of as a
feminist man that’s important to me to
be aware of being quicker to anger and
how I take up space and so my story is
not only my story it’s also my family
story it’s my wife story to tell she’s
an elementary school principal and she
has to choose whether or not to come out
in her professional life
about our family it’s also my son’s
story to tell he’s in middle school
right now and he has to decide when it’s
safe to come out to his friends it’s my
father’s story to tell my dad who’s in
his 80s now was dating in his 70s and he
would often come out to women that he
was dating about his son to see if this
person would be accepting of his family
so it’s my family story to tell as well
as my own and I’m very proud to say that
my family celebrates me as the man I am
in the world today and I’m hoping that
by hearing my story here today you’ll be
inspired to show up as an ally for
transgender people most of you aren’t
going to question your gender identity
but some of you will and it’s become
more common in part because of
transgender people like myself and my
generation and the generation before me
and the generation that’s coming up now
we’re more kids or coming out earlier
and earlier as gender
and you can be an ally by reflecting the
pronouns that we want to be called by by
reflecting the names that transgender
people sometimes choose to change our
name and that’s a way that you can show
up as an ally you can decide to make
your restrooms safe spaces so it’s
actually the law here in California and
your education code that all schools
need to be inclusive and welcome
welcoming of gender non-conforming
people and one way that you can do that
like some LGBTQ youth I know made this
gender fabulous bathroom and at their
school and these are ways that you can
help transgender people feel safe and
included not only in restrooms but in
all places of where we are this is most
recently at the LGBT Pride Parade in San
Francisco I went with my family my kid
made a sign it says my mom’s by my dad’s
trans and I’m proud of my family and I
hope that you will join me in that pride
and celebration of transgender people
now is the time where our community is
under attack in part because of how many
people have come out and it’s become
more there’s been more awareness and
education around transgender live so I
hope that you will as I said be inspired
to show up as allies and stand up for
transgender people when we need your
support and love so thank you for
hearing my story
[Applause]
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