Today is Trans Day of Visibility (March 31).
I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to share this wholesome portrait of Cece Chow, an Asian trans woman who transitioned later in life, with support from their ex-spouse and kids, and who finally feels at home in her own body.
CONTENT WARNING
- Mention of suicidal ideation
- Mention of sexual assault
- Mention of body parts/genitalia
GET HELP
If you are struggling with mental health or suicidal ideation, please don’t give up on seeking help.
The Trevor Project
988 LGBTQIA+ Crisis line
GUEST BIO
Cece Chow is an autistic, ADHD, disabled, Canadian born Chinese trans woman, parent, model, and transgender rights advocate. She strongly believes that representation changes lives and is dedicated to creating positive Asian trans representation so that trans kiddos will see a future for themselves and so that adults who grew up the way she did will see that it is possible to come out later in life and find joy in authenticity.
Instagram | TikTok | LinkedIn
DEFINITIONS
- Gender dysphoria: A sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. This sense of unease or dissatisfaction may be so intense it can lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life.
- CPTSD: Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) can result from experiencing chronic trauma, such as prolonged child abuse or domestic violence. It’s closely related to PTSD and borderline personality disorder.
MENTIONED
- Cece’s S1 E07 episode
- What anti-trans bills passed in 2024? (US)
- 66% of NYT stories about trans issues failed to quote a trans person
- Alberta restrictions on transgender youth access to care
CONTACT
Instagram | TikTok | Web | LinkedIn | Twitter
Host: Lazou
Full interview with captions
Transcript of full interview
Please note that this episode contains additional clips, commentary, etc. The transcript below is only that of the video linked above, which is the interview call I did with Cece. For transcripts of the actual full episode, they are auto-generated on Apple Podcasts a few days after release.
LAZOU: Today we have Cece Chow back on the Nuances Podcast. Cece, welcome back.
Cece: Thanks so much for having me back again
LAZOU: yeah. So because of all the anti trans rhetoric going around, both in Canada and the US, I wanted to have an episode that shows just how important support for trans people can be. And I know that has been huge for you. so I want to talk a bit about your journey. What was it like in the before times before your transition?
What did you feel like as a kid looking at yourself in the mirror?
Cece: As a kid, I started struggling with my gender without understanding that it was gender that I was struggling with. It started like in grade four or five with the clothes I was wearing and not wanting to wear certain boys clothes and wanting to wear some of the stuff that, that the girls got to wear. It didn’t really get bad until I got into puberty. Developing facial hair the way that my voice dropped. It was really hard seeing my own body develop the way the boys bodies around me were developing rather than the way that the girls bodies were developing. And, as a result it was very difficult for me to connect with the boys, and yet at the same time, although emotionally I connected really well with the girls and it was easy to make friends, I was always just a bit on the outside because, I didn’t look like them and I wasn’t experiencing puberty the way that they were experiencing. They saw me as a boy, and so I had to hang out with the boys, yet not fitting in, so I, I ended up having a very lonely childhood.
LAZOU: So at the time were you even aware of the concept of transgender or did you not know anything about it?
Cece: So I was born in the late 70s, but grew up in the 80s. There was no representation. I didn’t know that it was a thing. I really didn’t know until university. When I was in university, we saw the beginning of the internet. And suddenly there was all of this information available on bulletin boards and stuff like that. But it still didn’t feel like a thing that I could claim. There was no positive representation for it. There was a lot of negative representation eventually, in media and movies and, so I ended up not transitioning until much, much later in life, until I was 42 and by that time. I had married a beautiful woman, had kids with her, two kids yeah, it was, it was very, very challenging and, I think a lot of what I was feeling was like, because what I could see in media was drag queens and, I don’t know, Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was definitely not me. And like, drag queens aren’t trans necessarily, I couldn’t see myself, like, that wasn’t me. And, you know, what we saw in the media wasn’t me. And, I wasn’t like the villains who were portrayed as trans in the movies so it was like, oh, that can’t be.
LAZOU: When was the switch for you where you decided that you wanted to transition, where you realized that you wanted to transition and present as feminine.
Cece: So the point where I had my gender epiphany to understand myself as trans, to accept myself as trans, was one day in the shower I was applying soap and just, had a complete panic attack at, um, cleaning myself and being like, oh, there’s a penis attached to my body and this feels so wrong.
And it’s not that I didn’t feel that wrongness before, but it was never so intense that I would have a panic attack. And that was six? Six years ago. That was the beginning of a very difficult time and there’s been a lot of deconstruction of identity and discovery of identity.
LAZOU: Yeah. So when did you first take your first steps into, maybe dressing more feminine or putting on makeup? And how did that feel like to you?
Cece: I, I, I like to say that I’ve been in for years and years and years because, starting in university, I went through this phase where I I grew my hair out I blew dry my hair with a round brush. I taught myself how to do a blowout and I did that every day. At first it was this little short bob and it got longer like sort of shoulder length and you know, that was something that was gender affirming.
I used to cycle a lot and so I shaved my legs because I had this excuse. Oh, I’m a cyclist. I shave my legs. Um, but really it just, it felt more affirming to my gender. I felt more comfortable in my body that way.
There were other things like, I groomed my brows. They were skinnier than they are now. Um, you know, that was all while, you know, male, masculine presenting.
But like, since my gender epiphany, I think it took me three months. Because I was like, I need to come out to my closest friends. I need to come out to my now ex wife, my brother, my parents, and then my children. And then I would start my social transition.
And so, it was about three months after, after my epiphany. And, I remember going to the store and I was like, okay, I’m going to buy some more feminine pants. And like, I did everything really gradually in a stepwise fashion. And so I bought new pants and I had like three pairs of girl pants and proceeded to rotate through the 3 pairs over and over and over and over again.. And then, slowly switched over to women’s blouses, which were you know, button ups. So it was really gradual for me, very, like, sort of subtle and, I taught myself how to do makeup at night. Before washing my face at night, I started with mascara and when I got comfortable with mascara, I don’t know, I think I started filling in my brows and, I just kind of added things one step at a time, and it was really gradual. So I didn’t, go on a big shopping spree and get all the makeup and like, try to apply all the makeup at once.
And, like, there is this trope of, oh, like, newly out trans girls are, like, teenage girls who want all the makeup, and they want to do all this stuff, and then they end up, you know, a little clowny because they’re still learning, which is, you know, cis girls go through this and like trans girls can go through this, but I kind of, I like systems. So I like kind of added to it once I got more comfortable and better.
LAZOU: When you bought those first pairs of pants and you wore them for the first time, did you feel different than when you were wearing the guy pants? Like how did that feel to you?
Cece: It did feel different. It was like, like this clothing was meant for me, this makeup is meant for me. It was like a bridge to an experience of living that I’d never had and that I’d always dreamed of.
LAZOU: When you and I met, you had transitioned socially, you have been pretty active on social media, sharing your story. You’re always dressed in those really cute outfits you’re great at your makeup. How did that feel to you to be seeing yourself feminine and wearing the clothes that you want, wearing the makeup that you want and being accepted that way?
Cece: There was a lot of imposter syndrome. And I guess in addition to the imposter syndrome, there is body dysmorphia, which is when a person looks at themselves, they don’t see reality. They see this alternate version of reality in their minds. I reached this point where I was considered by people as pretty, but I couldn’t see myself as pretty. And so there was a lot of just pretending that I saw myself that way. Because other people were saying it, and it’s really, it’s really challenging, it’s taken quite a long time to reconcile the image in my brain with what is actually physically happening to my body. And so, like, even, even now, you know, I can look in the mirror and, At times I will recognize a feature from before my transition. And the gut feeling is, oh, that’s so masculine. Even though a lot of traits like facial structure or bone structure or whatever is, they’re not inherently masculine or feminine. Like if we really take a look at all of the people out there, you know, there are lots of beautiful women who have broader shoulders than I have and who, I don’t know, have a more prominent brow bone and I’m talking about cis women. Um, but when I saw those things in myself, I was like, Ooh, so masculine, but I think it’s because that was attached to the old feelings of myself. it’s almost a little like cPTSD in that sense, it’s like a flashback. So I have the feelings from before because I recognize it now. But I am slowly making progress in reconciling that the things that I see aren’t always actually the things that I see, with my eyes and, taking a view of well, let’s look at the women in my life. Oh, this is my friend, and wow, I think that she’s beautiful, but her shoulders are broader than mine. I mean, that specifically happened to me. That’s been very helpful in, rewiring, my brain a little bit. And I think that that’s not necessarily even a trans challenge. The body image challenge is not just a trans one.
LAZOU: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know, a lot of discussion and, bills are going around regarding trans access to gender confirming care. so I wanted to talk to you about like, what difference did it make for you to have access to care. Access to maybe hormone therapy, or surgery, or any of that. Because I think a lot of people who oppose those probably don’t know a trans person and have never talked to one. And don’t know why it’s so important for people to have access to it.
Cece: For me, transition was a life or death situation. I, I often hesitate to call it a choice, because given the choice between living and dying, I think most people will choose whatever it is they have to do to live. I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation linked to my gender dysphoria. Transition really was the thing that saved my life. I gave a talk on Trans Day of Remembrance about how, I went through a lot of my life not self harming by cutting or with drugs or whatever, but I constantly put myself into dangerous situations. So it’s sports situations: mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing, and I, I would take all the risks because I don’t know, it didn’t quite matter if I lived or died because I couldn’t… how to say this… because society told me that who I am is not acceptable, told me that I cannot be who I am, you have to be this man and father and husband. Transition and medical care and intervention really saved my life. When you hate your body, you’re not gonna take care of it. You’re gonna be sacrificing, like, sorry, um, I wasn’t planning on getting emotional. Um,
LAZOU: It’s okay. Take your time.
Cece: When you hate yourself, it’s very hard to want to live. Transitioning and getting on hormones and eventually getting my vaginoplasty are, are things that saved my life. They were things that helped me be able to live in my body in a way that felt authentic and natural, even though the process was hard. With my hormone therapy, I was on, androgen blockers to block testosterone, and then estradiol and progesterone to feminize and, I’m very lucky that my body has feminized really quickly and, in a way that feels good to me. And so I had breast growth and I lost a lot of muscle mass. And I got curvy. I got a bum. My butt used to be pretty flat despite being an athlete. Um, with those things came more comfort in my body. It, It, made me care. It made me care about me. and it made me care more about the people around me and made me care more about, like my children and it made me care about the world and all the things that were happening in it. Um, it made me care about my city. And then finally getting my vaginoplasty in Montréal, Québec, about a year ago. That has been so life changing. Like I’ve had a pretty trauma filled life and I was experiencing so much dysphoria from living in a body with a penis attached to it that there was no space to process those traumas. I could not heal from them because I didn’t have a mental capacity, an emotional capacity to do that. And then in this last year after my vaginoplasty and finding relief from that gender dysphoria finally allowed me to process those things. Process things like, getting raped and, you know, sexual assault as a child and, and even stuff like corporal punishment from my parents when I was a kid. Processing through those things, it just wasn’t possible before finding a home in my body because everything felt so wrong all the time.
LAZOU: Yeah. you know, surgery was a huge decision. It had risks. How much time did you spend kind of weighing the pros and cons in terms of you know, the risks involved, and were you scared? Were you only excited? What was that like? Yeah.
Cece: I think the pros and cons was really, was really easy. I knew right away. You know, when I had my epiphany in the shower, I, I knew that I want to have a vaginoplasty and I, at that point, I already knew what the operation entailed. Like I had done all of the research and kind of knew that the surgeon that I would be seeing would be in Montreal because that’s where my Provincial Health District sends everybody. I already knew all the things that would happen. I mean, there were things that I didn’t know that I found out later, um, but like the pros and cons, like the con was, there could be complications. Like, oh, you might have hair in your vaginal canal. You know, w, typically recovery is three months of just about all bedrest and doing post surgical care. I guess those were the cons, but the pros was: if I get this, I think I think I won’t die. And so getting to live despite whatever complications came out of the surgery kind of outweighs all of the cons and it’s like even if I die from the complications, at least I would have fought for me.
LAZOU: Yeah.
Cece: Yeah. And so it wasn’t a hard choice for me. And I know for some people, it is. It is a hard choice and, it can be really heavy. But I’m also the person who, as a young adult who rode their bicycle a lot was like, you know, if I had an accident on my bicycle that somehow amputated my penis, I’d be pretty okay with that.
You know, like, I, like, I, I’ve always known, always. Yeah.
LAZOU: And that’s something that comes up a lot in those discussions that anti trans people are always saying, well, if you give kids access to this care, what if they regret it? And minus surgery, everything else is reversible, right?
So. What do you say to people when they tell you kids shouldn’t have access to it because they might regret it someday?
Cece: I think the thing that often isn’t looked at is, are kids going to regret not having that care? Because I can tell you that every late in life trans adult will tell you, I wish I could have gotten this care when I was a child. I wish I could have delayed my puberty so that I didn’t grow facial hair. Like I have, I had electrolysis to remove my facial hair and I could have bought a car with the money that I spent on that and that’s not a thing that’s covered by insurance or whatever that was, that’s out of pocket. Right. just the, the masculinizing of the body in terms of a trans feminine person, those are irreversible changes too, right? If your bones grow a certain way, they are just going to be that way. And like, brow bones on testosterone influenced growth tend to be more pronounced and stick out more. And those are permanent things, right? Like you can get cosmetic surgery. Yeah, sure.. And it costs a lot of money, right?. So, that’s one side of things. It’s like by not providing the care, you are still causing irreversible changes that can’t be, like, you can compensate for them after the fact, but like, the amount of money and time and risk involved in those corrective procedures, it’s, it’s, it’s far greater than puberty blockers that delay puberty.
And then it just resumes. And they’re like, oh, but it’s gonna harm their growth or whatever. And it’s like, okay, so even if, and it’s not an actual talking point, right. But like, even if they’re, oh, they’re a little bit smaller, like they’re not as tall as their peers or whatever, is that really such a terrible thing? If you are giving a child the chance to grow up, with the childhood that they deserve, right? like, for me, I, I went through this childhood where I couldn’t connect with my friends who were girls. I was always on the outskirts. I didn’t get to go to the mall with them. I didn’t get to go shopping with them. I didn’t get to learn how to, put on makeup with them. I don’t get those experiences. I don’t, I didn’t get to, have my true sexual awakening and puberty with my peers, because I went through a puberty that just didn’t feel right. It didn’t really didn’t work for me. And then now, going through my second puberty with hormones, and then third puberty with my vaginoplasty, age peers don’t even remember what it was like. They don’t remember puberty anymore and, and so it’s like I grew up alone in childhood and then now in my second and third puberty, I am doing it alone again. And it’s not to say that there isn’t community, but it’s not, the same as growing up with it as a child, as a teen, and a young adult.
LAZOU: Yeah. You don’t get that collective. You’ve mentioned this a couple of times on your social media, your ex wife and kids have been supportive of your transition. I’d love to know what that has felt like for you. What that support has meant. Talk a little bit about them because they’re awesome.
Yeah.
Cece: The first thing out of her mouth was, " Oh my God, this is going to be so hard for you. How are you going to get through it".
So the first thing out of her mouth was concerned for me, and centered around my wellness over her own. She’s just been so supportive.
I mean, it. Um, you know, she went through emotions around it, heartbreak and anger and, you know, disappointment, all the things that you would expect when going through loss. But the one thing that we promised each other was that we were going to make it as easy as possible for the children, who were super amazing.
When I came out to my eldest, he was like, "okay, but you’re a girl who likes cars? I don’t understand".
And, and I was like, "well, there’s girl race car drivers and drift car drivers and stuff. They obviously like cars, right?"
And he was like, "well, yeah. Okay."
You know, and that was it.
My youngest is just the most empathetic person. And after I came out and asked if they had any questions, they were like, " you know, I struggle with things too, but it’s okay to feel that way."
And then he gave me a big hug. And like that, that was kind of it. Like that it wasn’t, It wasn’t a big deal for them and, having that support meant that, even if I lose all the rest of my family, I like, still have my family. You know, my ex wife and I, we still have a lot of love for one another and it like took us a while to redefine the relationship and figure things out and set boundaries and things like that. But we’re still, we’re still family. We have a lot of love, we’re just not lovers anymore. And I I did, I lost just about all of my extended family, with the exception of a few, people. In Chinese culture, family is everything. And I was prepared to lose everything, but I, in the end, I, I didn’t have to lose, I didn’t have to lose all of it..
LAZOU: It’s so wonderful to see how your kids and your ex wife received the news with such positive energy. Like, it’s so, it’s so wholesome. It makes me want to cry..
Before we wrap this up, what advice give to parents who are anxious about their kids wanting to transition. You know, every parent would be worried about any big life change.
On a recent podcast by Ezra Klein, Masha Gessen was talking about how there’s a lot of things that are life changing that we seem to have no problem with, like plastic surgery.
That’s legal for kids, as long as their parents approve it. Or Signing up to go fight wars in the military. You might die. You can do that pretty young. Nobody seems to have a problem with that. But for some
reason Trans care is like this whole big hoopla. It’s really interesting, the priorities that people seem to have when it comes to what should be legally mandated versus at the discretion of the family and the parents and the child and their care team.
So what advice do you have for parents who are worried? Like, am I doing the right thing? Maybe they’re getting pressure from their friends or family or community about, no, you shouldn’t do this or yes, you should do it, know. I’m sure parents going through this have a lot of questions.
Cece: I myself am a parent to a trans kid. So my youngest, came out to me, about a year and a half ago as non binary. And they’re, you know, they were 12 at the time. and, you know, I was able to say all the stuff that I wished my parents would have said to me. Um, But, do I worry about them? I do. And I think. Honestly, I think it isn’t any different than any other thing that you would do to care for your child. In the sense that, like… for my youngest, they are now 13. They are coming into the onset of puberty. They’re a little bit of a late bloomer, which is perhaps a blessing. But to me, I’m like, oh, puberty is coming, so I had to have this talk with them.
Normally, like, 13 people are like, Oh, I gotta have this birds and the bees conversation with my kids. And I don’t know, premarital sex and safe sex and whatever and STDs and whatever. But with my youngest, I’m like, "Look, puberty is coming. Do you understand what changes are coming for your body and you’ve seen your, older brother," I’m like, "are you okay with your body changing in those ways"?
So we had this whole conversation about puberty and then, you know, for them at that, like, when we had the conversation to be like, "I, I, I think it might be okay. "
and sometimes we don’t know that it’s not okay until we’re in it. And suddenly it’s like, oh, this is not okay. But having the conversation means that if it becomes not okay, then we can choose to do something about it. I don’t have to wait until they go all the way through puberty. Oh, they just like hit the beginning and they’re like, I’m freaking out about this. we can put that on hold
LAZOU: Yeah. And they don’t have to go through that anguish alone.
Cece: Right and when it really comes down to it is what are the ways that you care about and care for your child as a person? Not what you want, but what is actually best for them? The statistics on self harm and suicide for trans kids, they’re frightening. as a person who’s struggled with suicidality my entire life because of my gender incongruence, I don’t want any child to, to go through that, especially not my own child, I think we need to approach it. and I’m going to steal something from, the last episode of season 3 of your podcast, where. where your guest was like, we need to approach it with compassion for people. Let’s not indoctrinate, let’s actually have real conversations. With our children and trust that they, they know what they feel, without, without indoctrinating them.
And like, that’s for the parents. I think the flip side is that a lot of the conversation around, puberty blockers and like cross sex hormones for the purposes of transition, it doesn’t actually come from a place of care. It comes from a place of control. And when we can understand that all the anti trans legislation is about control of our bodies, the control of trans bodies. the, thing that we need to realize is that that’s not where it ends. They are doing this because the people in power, their power comes from oppression. So to maintain control, they need somebody to oppress. And it isn’t limited to trans people. It isn’t limited to queer people, like, that’s where it starts. That’s where it started with Hitler also. And so it starts with trans people and then queer people and then people of color. Although, I mean, arguably people of color are still being oppressed, but it’s going to be all people of color. Like the model minority myth, that’s not even going to exist anymore. Like, it’s going to be all people of color and then they’re going to come for reproductive rights. They’re going to be policing all women’s bodies, which they all do already. And even all the stuff we have about banning trans women in women’s sports. That’s about controlling women’s bodies. It isn’t about controlling trans women’s bodies. It’s about controlling all women’s bodies. And so for anybody who isn’t a cisgender, hetero, white dude, they just haven’t gotten to you yet. Right?
And so let’s not let them. Let’s not let them do that. When we fight for the rights of the most marginalized, we guarantee the rights for all the rest.
LAZOU: Yeah. And I guess, final question is, how do you feel now about yourself? when you look in the mirror, are you happy? Do you like her?
Cece: yeah, I love her. I had a friend one time, um, and I was like, oh, you know, I like to look in the mirror and I just like, there’s all these things that I don’t like. And, and she said, yeah, but what do you like when you look in the mirror? And I was like, oh, well. I like my hair, and I like my lips, and I like my cheeks, and, um, my nose is okay, like, pretty, it’s normal for Asian, I don’t know, I like my eyes, and, I like my boobs, even though they’re small, and, I like my curves, and, and she was like, so what you’re saying is you like almost everything about your body. And I was just, that really struck me that we spend so much time looking for the things that we don’t like, that we can forget to look for the beautiful things. And so, yeah, I look in the mirror and sometimes I notice things that are like, I don’t love that. But then, you know, do this little switch and be like, but I love all of these other things.
And I feel. I feel at home in my body
LAZOU: Something that you’ve waited a long time to feel.
Cece: a really long time.
LAZOU: Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming back on the show and doing this. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Cece: Thank you so much for having me back. It’s been a few years since the, the other episode and it feels like a lot changed. but I really appreciate the, the opportunity to, create representation. I think it’s hard to be what you can’t see and it’s hard to care about. what you don’t know. And so, thank you for the opportunity for people to, to get to know.
LAZOU: Alright, well, thank you so much, I will speaking, I will be speaking to one of your kids very soon,
Cece: yeah, that, I’m pretty excited about that because we don’t have a lot of conversations. yeah, I’m, I’m very curious to see what, like a young Gen Z or elder Gen Alpha, like, how they feel about it, because it’s completely different than me as a Gen X er, or even, um, for, you know, my friends who are millennials, or whatever. So I’m, I’m looking forward to that too.
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