Transgender rural N.B. teen surprised to find acceptance

A Kings County teen who grew up as a girl and now identifies as a boy, says his rural community has been surprisingly accepting of his gender change.

"I was thinking people out here would be as judgemental as anyone else," says 18-year-old Zaelis Bickerton, while sitting in his parents' backyard, overlooking the rolling hills and farmland west of Sussex.

"But I have a lot of support from family, friends, the teacher, and the principal."

Bickerton recently graduated from Belleisle Regional High School, where his 37 classmates stopped calling him Rebecca after the Christmas break.

Bickerton used Facebook over the holidays to inform his friends he wanted to be called Zaelis or Xae for short.

"I didn't want to have to deal with a backlash," he explained about his decision to make the change effective the first day school resumed.

"It went good until the last class, when some guys mocked me. Immediately after, I went home and I emailed the principal, the teacher and the counsellor," says Bickerton.

All taunting then ground to a halt.

Bickerton said he was also anxious about broaching the subject with his parents but he says they are adjusting as well as he'd hoped.

"It all kind of started to click," says mother Linda Bickerton, after a day's work at Walmart.

"When Xae was younger, she was playing with Dinky cars and she was going to the fish pond and getting the newts and frogs. We just thought she was a tomboy."

Linda Bickerton says the concept was difficult to understand at first but she's been doing a lot of reading on the subject and that's helping.

Zaelis' father, Chris, a former underground miner, called his son courageous.

"He's trying and I appreciate that," says Zaelis.

Three months of hormone treatment have already started changing Zaelis' body.

He says his voice is lower, he's growing facial hair, and there's a redistribution of fat and muscle.

"Sometimes I forget that I'm a biological female," he says.

Bickerton made the decision last year to come out with a change of identity after struggling with depression and feeling uncomfortable in his own body and with what he saw in the mirror.

The Canadian Mental Health Association says youth in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities experience approximately 14 times the risk of suicide and substance abuse than their heterosexual peers.

Saint John psychiatrist Vinod Joshi says more people are becoming aware of the transgender community and are coming forward because of a reduction of stigma.

But he says no patient should ever rush an irreversible decision.

"A person has to demonstrate for a substantial period of time that [reassignment surgery] is what they want to do because once they go ahead with it, at a certain point, it becomes irreversible," says Dr. Joshi.

Bickerton says he's not ready to go there because he says surgery is expensive and he finds the idea, intimidating.

But he says he is happy with the hormone treatment and he's working under the care of a Saint John endocrinologist.

Bickerton says he gives himself weekly injections, which he will have to continue for as long as he wishes to present as male.

It's an out-of-pocket expense of about $160 per year.

Linda Bickerton says she will support Xae's gender decisions, whatever they are and whenever they come.

She says she's grateful her child is happy and healthy.

She is also proud to point out that Zaelis was an honours student and will soon study art at Sheridan College, in Ontario, with the help of a scholarship.

When asked for her advice as the mother of a transgender child, this is what she said:

"Listen to your children. They bottle a lot up, that we push aside as not important. But to them, it is important. Just listen."