Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - AJ Andrews: Toronto Mike'd #511

Episode Date: September 15, 2019

Mike chats with Blue Jays writer AJ Andrews about her decision to come out as a transgender woman.

Welcome to episode 511 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, dot com, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com, and my guest this week is AJ Andrews, who covers the Blue Jays for Jays from the Couch. Welcome, AJ. Welcome. Sorry, I'm so not used to being on this side of the mic. Thank you. Thank you. Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Please, come on. No, relax. You're in good hands. I know. I know. Just, all right, we got that out of the way. So now we're- So wait a minute.

It's Jay's from the couch, but am I correct that you've been sleeping on Keegan Matheson's couch? Is that right? While I'm in the city, the city yes okay and is it a comfy couch it is it it somehow manages to fit me which you cannot say that about a lot of couches how tall are you i'm six three six three yeah too tall for my basement but if you said you were uh if you said you were five foot eleven i'd be saying the same thing too tall for my basement too tall for a lot of how tall is keegan he's a tall guy right six he's only six yeah everyone seems tall to me because like i'm five nine so everybody's like oh you're a tall guy oh i'm five eleven i'm like oh okay it doesn't sound tall when you say it like

that when okay so uh how you're not from toronto no you're not you don't live in toronto no not even mississauga no not not even etobicoke i'm in the well etobicoke is toronto did you know that i i i was playing pokemon go on the way over and it kept saying toronto so i think i figured that out uh you see i'm here to educate you uh tell us where you live right now i live in halifax nova scotia so i'm that's where i'm doing everything from i i do all my podcasting out there i do all my writing out there i do my other job out there nova scotian born and raised um proud maritimer yeah unlike these other maritimers who come cover the blue jays and then stay in Toronto and then like lose their roots, which by the way, I do have to apologize to Gregor Chisholm. Okay.

I could not get a donair through airport security. So sadly, you will have to go without and just come back and you can get it fresh. Okay. So Gregor, I always want to call him Gregory. He's not a Gregory. He's a Gregor. He's a Gregor. He's a Gregor. Big difference.

Yeah. Don't screw that up tomorrow, Mike, because Gregor's here tomorrow. Yeah. So that's a bizarre coincidence. I'd have two Blue Jay writers from Nova Scotia back to back. He's New Brunswick. New Brunswick. Don't make that mistake.

I've been to both. I'm proud to say I've been to New Brunswick. New Brunswick is where Mon monkton is it is but we don't like to talk about monkton is that right no we there's a there's a rivalry going on and they're like oh we have the cfl and like we don't care i uh walked on the like ocean floor near monktonon, the Bay of Fundy or whatever that is. And then, no, I've been to Halifax. Wonderful.

It's all wonderful. And it's, it's true. You pointed it out, but okay. Yourself, who's still based in Halifax, writing about the Jays,

Keegan Matheson, whose couch you're sleeping on this week. He's from Nova Scotia. Yeah. He writes about the Jays and gregor chisholm is that right chisholm and chisholm i think chisholm okay i gotta get this right for tomorrow so he's not gonna listen to this this is all i could break my eggs now and then enjoy the omelet tomorrow so gregor chisholm uh he's over tomorrow but he he's from New Brunswick, and he writes about

the Jays. That's true. Why so many? What's going on over there? Do you have a theory on this? I think Maritimers are uniquely suited to cover baseball. It's a nice, easy pace. It's one of those sports where, again, you can have a few beers

during it, and you won't miss a thing. There's no clock. Exactly. There's a little bit of and you won't miss a thing there's no clock there's a little bit of a clock now but there back then there was no clock yeah a little bit of a pitch clock but again it's it's nice and easy going like a lot of us are and you know you're also hitting things with sticks which is also fun so i thought maybe you were going to blame it on like matt stairs or something like that right like like you know how we have the carter effect and they say oh look at all these great nba players and coming out of the gta because of vince carter and you'd be like oh matt stairs and and uh now

you got all these baseball writers coming out of the maritimes no you don't like just we just got hockey players coming out and that's that's where the sports focus still is. Although we got the kid on TFC. He's from Port Williams. Who's that? What's his name? It's like Schaffenberg or something. Okay, good.

I can't remember his last name right now. Okay, but that's cool. That's cool. Now, okay, so you're sleeping on Keegan's couch. And you're telling, I'm sure you told Keegan you're doing a Toronto mic. You probably brought it up, right? Now Keegan's been over twice, but I also saw him at least at one,

maybe two Toronto mic listener experiences, which are events we have at Great Lakes Brewery. In fact, it's too bad you're going back to Nova Scotia tomorrow, right? Tomorrow night. You're missing TMLX4, which is going to be held on Thursday. So you're so close yet so far. I know. So that's too bad.

But Keegan, I'm wondering, like, did Keegan tell you what to expect from this? Did you? Be honest with me. He did. He did tell me a couple things. I'm like, I knew a couple things because, like, I've listened to the podcast. So I am aware. But just the Keegan episodes. because, like, I've listened to the podcast. So I am aware. But just the Keegan episodes.

No, no. I've listened to more than that now. Come on. But, yeah, he told me, you know, get ready to talk a lot, which, I mean, I do it. Now I do it in, like, 20-minute spurts, but I do it daily. So I'm good. I got the endurance. Um,

he told me to expect a fine assortment of Great Lakes brews to be presented to me. You want it right now? Here, let's do it now. Okay. So are you going to have these down before you fly, uh, down East,

uh, tomorrow? It's probably going to be, it's going to probably be tonight's beverage choice. So you're saving me a trip to the LCBO.

Yeah, no, I'm glad to do that. Thank you, Great Lakes Brewery. So this is six pack of fresh craft

beer for AJ, for you to take back to Keegan's palatial estate. I hope it's a nice couch. And it's nice of him to do that, though.

Do you guys go way back? When did you guys... We met in university. Oh, I see. Okay. I don't know. You guys all seem so young to me. For all I know, that was two years ago.

But you guys were friends in university. And that's great. We were friends. We were roommates. We were trivia great. Yeah. We were, we were friends. We were roommates. We were trivia teammates. Oh, we, uh,

we, we dominated the Halifax bar trivia scene. And, um, yeah, like he's, he's been one of my best friends ever since. And no,

easy to like guy. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy. Like salt of the earth would give you the shirt off his back if it wasn't so sweaty sorry keegan i love you but yeah i i i see that i see that he's a kind of a sweaty dude but he recently i mean we haven't talked to him i mean i'm thinking there is a jay's game thursday night so he probably can't make tmlx4 yeah he i think he's actually going to new york for it

okay so yeah well that'll be tough we'll have to uh skype him in but i was gonna uh we haven't talked to him since uh he changed jobs like he had his own baseball toronto thing which i was really excited about because he like rolled his own and he created this thing and then he sold out right like then he's like screw this i. I'm going to take a steady paycheck. I'm still independent though. So at least there's that. I can still offer the unfiltered maritime experience. Good. We need somebody to, I mean, cause Gregor's at the Star

and now that Keegan's at MLB. So AJ, if you can stay independent, I have somebody to cheer for. I can do my best. Like I said, when I write, it's actually on jaysfromthecouch.com, which has been an independent site since 2016 when it was founded by Sean Doyle. He's another Nova Scotian, so he's out in Eastern Passage.

Oh, wow. There's something happening there. I think it's the Matt Stairs effect. Why won't you like, give me a little stairs is from Fredericton. We don't got that. Sorry. Oh,

sorry. Too far away. I feel like it's close enough. No, no. It's kind of like, you know, St. Ottawa is a suburb of Toronto.

Okay. That's not that close, but yeah, I've been doing that. And then I started doing the lockdown Jays jay's podcast last year um and that's that's actually a different podcast network setup um david lock who's the play-by-play guy for the utah jazz um he set that up okay and sean was actually gonna do it and then about two weeks in he's like yeah i can't really commit to a daily thing do you want it and i took it over and i've been

doing it since so how's that going for you that is it fine oh yeah like um like it helped me a lot like you know get my voice out there and and just you know have that kind of outlet where i could talk blue jays on the daily and like you know continue to work in the field which was a big thing and you know we're we're not at 500 episodes yet we're like halfway there but it sounds like a bon jovi song uh well it is living on a prayer sometimes trying to come up with content but you know i don't like bon jovi okay and you're much younger than i am but in 1987 i want to say yeah i was really into like the big hits i'd hear on 680 cftr which is a local all hit station i listened to but like uh living on a prayer and uh wait uh johnny used to work on the dog what's the other big one i don't

know i wasn't born uh anyway slippery When Wet was the name of the cassette. I had the cassette. And I really liked Bon Jovi. And then the next one that came out was New Jersey, I think. And it had big hits too, monster big hits. It's Bon Jovi, for God's sakes. But by that point, I thought they were kind of cheesy. And then everything since then, it's like I can't listen to it.

So there you go. When I was a young man in 1987 i thought they were pretty great and now i i think they're awful to be honest they might be the most overrated band i'm just saying i don't mean to change i mean okay i i bought that fallout boy cd when it came out and now it's like uh i kind of regret that my brother says they're doing a tour with weezer and Green Day. Yeah. Okay, so... It's late.

Okay, sorry, you go on. No, I was just going to say it's like full nostalgia trip. And, you know, when you're reaching the point when suddenly they're pandering to you with the nostalgia, then it's like, oh, crap, I'm old. What do I do? Well, the funny thing is, so my brother, he's all in because he loves Weezer and Green Day.

I feel I've seen Weezer a few times. I've seen Green Day a few times. In fact, I saw Green Day kind of recently. I feel like I saw them in the last couple of years. It's now the Budweiser stage. But my wife tells me today, she says, apparently my wife and I have very little overlap in terms of music. I like a whole bunch of this stuff and she has no interest.

And then she likes a bunch of this stuff. I have no interest, but apparently we, we seem to agree that we both do like Weezer and Green Day. So she says, and I, now I think about it, she's probably right.

We should go to this because how many concerts can we both want to go to? So I might end up trying to score tickets to this thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's always nice when you can kind of come together on music. Like me and my partner are in the same way. Like she likes a lot of indie rock and, you know, that kind of stuff.

And I am more like... Helix. I'm trying to get into it. Trans music, that sort of thing. Yeah, so if you can come together with a band or something, you probably should go together. Exactly. There you go. this is our relationship advice yeah the last the last time i was in toronto was in may because that was my christmas present to her was to get her greta

van fleet tickets this is the led zeppelin uh yeah sound like i haven't i don't know much about them essentially okay and they're are they good oh yeah like um she saw them before like i don't know if she saw them live or it was just video but when we went and saw them when they good oh yeah like um she saw them before like i don't know if she saw them live or it was just video but when we went and saw them when they were at the budweiser amphitheater it was like a vast improvement in their stage presence and stuff so yeah they're getting there they're getting really good i like what you did there you took the old name and new name and you merged them because it was the uh molson amphitheater and then they said okay now we're the budweiser stage like just you know I know

and then it's like okay so you were the you were the Air Canada Center and now you're the Scotia Bank Arena I don't know anyone who's like yeah I'm going to the Scotia Bank Arena but what should we call it like if you call it the I think we probably

still call it the ACC but that's still named after like a big, you know, company. It's not like the dome or I think there's people like to call it Skydome because we own Skydome. And then we sold it for 25 million bucks to Rogers who slapped their name on it.

Like, so it feels like that's all that I understand. Like, okay, let's call it Skydome. Like, cause this was ours. We built this with,

you know, tax, you know, a half a billion of our dollars or whatever but the acc and scotia bank like one is a bank one's an airliner like what you know what i mean so i know it's really random sometimes just the attachments that fans can form like i mean yeah you you said it yourself a giant airline company sponsored it, but everyone's like, I'll never call it Scotiabank. They took over the arena in Halifax too, so now it's like the Scotiabank Center,

but no one calls it that because it's been the Metro Center forever. Right. And Metro is like the new grocery store. Am I right? No, it's not out there. It's not out. Oh, you're all Sobeys out there. I remember now.

All Sobeys. Pretty much. That and Superstore. Right right which is loblaws here but right here we go this is what i'm doing i'm educating on the differences between toronto and the east coast right now you're gonna educate me on something i'm curious about so you okay so let's go back to jay's from the couch here okay so you how often are you writing a piece for jay's from the couch um i haven. So you, how often are you writing a piece for Jay's from the couch? I haven't been writing as often as I like lately, just because a lot of the effort has been going into the podcast. And,

you know, it, it does take a lot. You want to do a lot of research. I mean, like we are independent, so we want to make sure we get our, our stuff right.

Like, cause I mean, it's not like sports net where they'll put like two typos in an article and no one will notice, but we got some really good writers there that that handle a lot of the stuff and it has allowed me to take kind of a step back and you know focus more on myself which which we're gonna get to for sure because uh yeah okay so how about this um okay we'll get to that how about i'm trying to think, let me just update everybody on the fact that today was the Terry Fox run.

Yeah. So a lot of people listening pledged money for the run and I want to say thank you. So thank you. It's funny, the most recent pledge came in like yesterday from Anne Romer, who Toronto people will know that name, Anne Romer. She's a longtime media personality in the GTA here.

And so that was great. And a number of people, like we, I think, well, over a thousand bucks. I have to do the final tally, but fantastic. And the run was today. So me and the whole family did it at High Park. And it was, it looked like a really good turnout. It was beautiful weather. And then we went for brunch and I'm like i gotta make time aj's coming over and i'm happy to have you here

because you're flying back tomorrow so it's like you're only here for when did you arrive i got here early friday morning so this is a whirlwind visit yeah it i've been i've been going through the city you know trying to hit the events and the people and i'm i'm gonna miss out on it on a few people but i like it's been great what i have been able to do here so like i'm very appreciative of that and you know if i could spend more time here i would but you know i can't i can't leave the east coast for too long uh why not why not just move here like everybody else i did i did actually move here for a year i lived i lived in east york while i was in school here um where'd you go to school here i went to centennial okay so i was in the sports journalism program there and um i i essentially was out in east york the entire time so still kind of out

there but um when i was applying for jobs the first one i got was back in halifax so me and my partner moved back and and there's more like kitchen parties there that's what is that right i'm trying to remember that's the big thing uh the Maritimers are missing here. We don't have enough kitchen parties. A fair amount of kitchen parties. Like someone has a birthday, party. Someone got a new job, party. It's a Thursday, party. So here, and I don't do this,

but I hear cool people in Toronto do this. Cool people with no kids, I guess. But they're like, okay, it's my birthday. Meet us at this expensive restaurant place right yeah and then everyone goes there and has to cough up whatever 100 bucks or whatever i am when i went for brunch this morning um i went to this place called three monks and a duck which is on queen um i i gave him a shout out because i told them i'd be on the podcast today oh good hello monks and duck but yeah there was this like birthday party behind me and there was like seven of them and they're like like dragging out like tote bags and stuff i'm like you you couldn't

do this at like home right so in the so right so like in at home in halifax that would be in someone's kitchen sort of like right and then you you're drinking there you got your kitchen kitchen living room bed backyard um right and that makes the that's that something i would much rather do that like i think i always say i feel like i'm a maritimer at heart like i'm just born in the wrong city uh i totally have this little fantasy of just like like sell the home and go go live out in the maritimes whatever but um what was it oh yeah yeah so oh great lakes i was gonna make a point oh yeah that's right so i often used to say that uh 99.9 percent of all great lakes beer remains here in ontario and you want to guess where the other uh 0.01 percent of their beer would end up. It's leaving Ontario.

And where do you think it would end up? I would think... Shot in the dark. I won't be mad if you get it wrong. I would say BC. That'd be a very good guess. But the answer is Halifax. I thought it was a trick question.

No, I would never do that to you because it's no fun if I just... If it was BC, it's no fun. It had to be Halifax i i thought it was a trick question no i would never do that to you because it's no fun if i just if it was bc it's no fun it had to be halifax bb fun so yeah so that's where i don't i can't remember there's a place in halifax that sells great lakes brewery so you you can actually still get it at home so still well uh maybe i can't remember but i'll go with that so uh enjoy the beer uh palma pasta justma Pasta, just yesterday, they had the one year anniversary of Palma's Kitchen, which is the most remarkable facility

and I love it there because it's like a retail store but it's a hot table and you can also get the pizza and the cappuccino and it's just comfortable environment and it's, like I said, one year old on yesterday

and they had a little party there. So happy birthday to Palma's Kitchen. There's a lasagna for you. Now, I don't know when you're going to have time to make this. It's probably going to end up with Keegan, but you probably owe him. Probably will. Yeah, I got to pay him back for the rent on the couch for the weekend.

Right. So, yes, Keegan is going to score here. That's great for Keegan. So thank you, Palma Pasta. AJ, you're taking home with you with Toronto Mike's sticker. And wherever you stick that thing in Halifax, you've got to send me a picture. So I want to know where that ends up.

So thank you StickerU.com Laura from StickerU will be announcing a wicked contest for listeners of Toronto Mike. She'll announce that on Thursday at TMLX4, which of course, again, I've said this a million times, you're probably sick of hearing it, but if you can

make it to Great Lakes Brewery on Thursday night between 6 and 9 p.m., I would love to see you there for TMLX4, and I'm recording live, so four microphones will be set up. You could jump on a mic and say hi and have a quick chat. It would be amazing. I want to have so many people there that I can just keep, you know, talking to different people for 2.5 hours. So I need people to show up. That's why I need you to come to Great Lakes Brewery on Thursday night. So you got your stickers from Sticker You. You got your lasagna. You got your beer. This is a pop socket for your phone. It's from Capadia LLP. rupesh capadia is the rock star accountant i don't see any reason why you couldn't utilize rupesh capadia services from

nova scotia i mean it's a phone you know email i don't think you have to physically be there so if you want a free consultation with rupesh the rock star accountant i'm happy to set that up he sees beyond the numbers very easy to talk great sense of humor, just a very interesting guy. And he's totally helpful if you have any questions with taxation or your business or wherever you're taking your talents. So thank you, Rupesh. I also want to thank Brian Gerstein from Propertyinthe6.com. AJ, if you ever do move to toronto and you want to you know you need a place to live and uh brian like that yeah he can find a home within your budget like even if you can't afford to buy right now and you have to rent like he's he's your

guy he can he can handle both so he was telling me yesterday that uh i want to get the detail right here there was a three bedroombedroom Galleria Mall condo that he got his buyer. And he says, phase two is coming up, so you can still get into phase two. But apparently it was bananas to get in on phase one. But he did get one for his client, which is great. There's a view of the community center and the park.

It's a clear view. And yeah, Galleria Mall condos. So contact Brian. Mike, what's Brian's number? Well, I should have memorized it by now, but I haven't. 416-873-0292. If you're planning to buy and or sell in the next six months, contact Brian Gerstein.

He's with PSR Brokerage. And this is going to be tough for you, AJ, because you'll be in Halifax. Yeah, but you never know. Halifax. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you never know. I could be needing a place here. I have had requests like, why don't you come to Toronto? I'm like, well, my family's out there and my house.

Well, that actually, I thought you actually could probably utilize the real estate services because you could end up here at some point, especially if you're going to keep covering the Jays. But you're going to be screwed out of seeing Pumpkins After Dark. So this is happening in Milton, Ontario, from September 26th to November 3rd. It's 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins that illuminate the skies at Country Heritage Park in Milton. There's sound, there's 100 sculptures.

It's amazing. If you go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and use the promo code pumpkin mike pumpkin mike saves you 10 so do that and it lets them know that you heard about them and on toronto mic'd but i do have two tickets for you aj so i'm thinking uh i give them to you anyways like they're pdfs and you can always i don't know maybe keegan benefits again maybe i i do know other people in the city. I can ask around. But I don't know those people.

Fair enough. Here, I'm looking out for my boy, KM, there. But yes, of course, you can share them with anyone you want. But I'll send you the two tickets anyways. Sounds good. Because I have them for you. I appreciate that. Now, let's see here.

Where do I begin? Can I begin by playing a clip from, uh, from Scott MacArthur? So did you hear episode 499 with Scott? I may have listened to that one. Scott was fantastic. I actually shared it again today because I was, I had to pull a clip. So I listened to it again and he was, cause he just did something for the Toronto Star. Yeah.

He was better on my show. Like I can say that, right? Like I know everyone's going to be like, oh, this is a great, uh, and a great job. Uh, great job by the Toronto Star, but, uh, he was better on my show. I can say that, right? I know everyone's going to be like, oh, this is a great job by the Toronto Star, but he was better on Toronto Mic'd. He was better on my podcast, too. He was better on your podcast, too. And remind us the name of your podcast. It's Locked on Blue Jays.

Locked on Blue Jays. Usually, it's a 20-minute podcast. Scott was on. We went an hour, because once you get Scott on a roll, he's not going to stop. Well, an hour is a long time. I think I got two out of them. You got me.

Twice as much, Scott. So let's listen to a tiny bit of Scott MacArthur on Toronto Mike. There is a woman by the name of AJ Andrews who I had never met, and she writes for the Jays from the Couch blog. And there had been a Ryan Andrews writing for the Jays from the Couch blog.

Okay. And then on a day in late June, AJ Andrews posted and said, I'm not Ryan, I'm AJ, I'm a woman. I'm a transgendered woman. She came out as transgendered. And it caught my eye. And so I DMed AJ a relatively lengthy note of support and saying, what you have done here is extremely courageous. If, you know, it's these platitudes, but it was more like, if there's any help, if I can be of any help, please let me know. And she wrote back a wonderful note. And we stayed in touch and I asked her probably later in the week or something. I said, like, can I just, like,

what's the response been like? Is it like a hundred zero positive? Is it 90, 10? Is it 80, 20? Like she said, it has been absolutely wonderful and amazing.

And, uh, now, okay. So where do I begin here? Why don't we hear from you? Sure. Tell us about,

I want, I want to know everything. Whatever you're comfortable sharing. We got plenty of time. All right. So. All right, let's hear from you. Your story. Do you want the whole thing like from the beginning?

Yeah. Like I said, I knew when I was younger that, you know, I was not your normal kind of person like you know definitely not in that that traditional masculine kind of sense like I I love sports I mean I would not be talking about the Blue Jays daily if I did not love sports but like I I never came at it like that life or death kind of mentality and you know when you grow up i grew up in truro nova scotia which is out out outside true is that where uh arash madani is he is another maritimer who stayed out here and is you know just i'm i'm the only one still holding it down mike well you're still young exactly um but yeah growing up like i had no idea about any of that stuff like there was no education there was no like i didn't even have internet until i was like in high school

because like that's how far out in the sticks i was and my parents will hate me for saying that because they're like oh you grew up fine i'm like well i did not have a lot going on there well give me an idea what calendar year we're talking about like because i mean i'm an old man so i can tell you i didn't have internet until university okay but that's because there really was no internet for uh residential purposes so yeah what what what calendar year are we talking about we have no internet um we probably got internet around like 2000 and it was dial up and we had that forever because like again living out where we did there was not a lot of connectivity sure so you know uh it it was great

the problem is my brother loved wow and would be on it until 12 and then that's when i could get on and actually read the sports articles and like do the blogging that i was doing at the time which was my first taste of sports writing um i had a blog on fox sports which oh cool i did well i i was i was well enough They're like, oh, it's that Canadian kid. So were you always writing about the Jays? Is that was that your focus? Or not back then? Back then I was more spread out.

Like I did more football. I did basketball. I did occasionally do hockey. But, you know, I kept coming back to baseball. Baseball is my bread and butter. So I did that for a bit then when I got to university I was looking at doing journalism there but you know you take you take a 17 year old 18 year old kid and you're like your parents are not gonna look at you and here's a bunch of alcohol so um I did not fare well um and that that kind of to a spiral, and I had to take a break from university.

And when I did that, that's when I started writing fiction with some other people online. And when I was writing the fiction, that's when the feeling started reemerging. Whenever I wrote, I wasn't writing me i was writing all these other people and like they like 90 of them were female and you know once you get to start doing that and you see a trend he's like why why do i want to do this? Like, and it took, it took a long time to actually get to the point where I actually figured it out. But like I said, I can remember very vividly the moment that I figured it out. Cause it was like, um, it was a weekend after St. Patrick's day, um, 2013, I was sitting on my bed in my Oxford street apartment. I'd been there for like hours, just like staring out the window

and like trying to figure it all out in my head. And by that point, like I was very aware of transgender people and like knew like, oh, this is a thing that might actually apply to me. And so once I figured that out, like it was a little bit better in my head but at the same time i'm i'm rational enough to know you know broke university student probably can't actually act on this for a little bit oh so you're so just to be clear here you're living your

life as as a man named ryan is that right yeah but you've now reached uh the you have now reached the realization that you're actually uh a woman named aj yeah okay yeah and you know it is like scott said like you you know that about yourself but you bury it for the sake of you know finding a job like trying to advance your, trying to make sure you don't lose friends and family. Like you, you don't even know like what the reaction is going to be. So, um, like I said, I figured that out. And then the first person I ended up telling was my brother. And I totally did not mean to do that i mean i love my brother he would not have been my first choice but um again i older younger he's younger he's 28 um but yeah we were coming

back from the bar one night and i i just started crying and he's like why are you crying i'm like because i hate my life like you know at that point where i'm just like i don't i don't want to be this like it was it was just at that point and like i told him and then he kind of forgot about it like like he didn't even really believe it that's how good a job i had done like burying everything and like you know being this masculine person like sports booze or jerseys like that sort of thing and then um it wasn't until like I told another person who uh did accept it and you know first person to call me aj to to my face like that's like okay this will sustain me for a little bit right and then you know you start to move forward and and again you try and

get in that space where you feel comfortable really doing it um and like i knew i knew i wanted to get into the industry first like my whole whole plan was like, you know, get a job, you know, have my face out there for a little bit and then boom, I'll just drop the ball and everyone can can deal with it. Right. So you wanted to establish yourself first because was your fear that you would be unable to those doors would close on you? Exactly. And like, that's a lot of the internalized thing with, you know, a lot of queer people who are trying to figure themselves out. It's a lot of like the fear of the unknown when you're trying to figure this out and how other people are going to react. Because it is a game-changing thing. You're asking people to change their entire

perceptions of yourself and you know some people take to it a lot easier than others um like after I told that second person I didn't tell another person for like two years after that that person uh is my, still my partner now. And, you know, like, she thought she was getting into a normal relationship. And then I'm like. But she's still with you, man. Yeah. It's like she loves you. Yeah.

Yeah, she does. And I'm so grateful for that. Like, you know, I don't know how much I could have pushed it without her support. Like, knowing I had someone else, like, actually, like, in my life. Especially coming here. Because, like, I told her pretty much right before we moved to Toronto. Because it's like, if you're willing to come to Toronto, you should know everything. Right.

So, told her. She still loved me. She still came. it was great um and then yeah went went through the stuff at centennial and did all all these wonderful things and then and i got to the point near the end of my course and i was having a hard time like finding something in the industry and when when you get to that point, like you have this plan, you have it all mapped out and then it looks like it's just going to fall

apart. Like that, that takes a toll. Like it, it was bad. Like I, I don't mince words. It's,

it wasn't. Okay. Be specific. Real talk here. Keegan must've warned you that there's going to be some real time. I know the hashtag. But yeah, it was really

dark to the point where I was seriously contemplating suicide. I'd be walking home from class and I'd see the buses racing down Pape Avenue. I'm like, I could just stick my head in front of one of those and it'd be done. Be over.

I wouldn't have to think about it. And, you know, there's enough voice in there that's like, no, don't stick your head in front of a bus. You know, that rational side of myself. But eventually I did find something. Like, I did get a job back home, like I said. Moved back. It was full-time.

Had health insurance for the first time in, like, forever. So that was good. And it allowed me to start seeing therapists, seeing counselors. And eventually, we just started, you know, rolling it out. Started pushing. Like, I started telling more people. it out started pushing like I started telling more people um you know eventually it got to the point where you know the the people I was working in sports with like I told Sean I told everyone on the couch and you know they accepted me 100% and you know once once you get that base built up

it's so much easier to just be like I'm gonna tell you and you and you and you and you and you. And I guess that's what I'm interested in. Like, did you cheer? I guess at the beginning you're cherry picking who you, uh, tell based on how the, you think they'll respond. Like how,

I don't, I don't know what the terms, how progressive or open to this reality. Or like your comfort level with them i mean like i i didn't tell my parents until last year and i didn't even like i i didn't have a chance to like set them up i just showed up for a visit and then within like five minutes they're like ryan why are your nails painted i'm like well i was gonna save this but let's just get it out now. Wow. Like, how did you feel like preparing for that? I think were you shitting bricks?

Because I'm getting secondhand anxiety hearing you talk about it. I know. And I honestly, I shouldn't have. Like, I mean, I have good parents. I'm very fortunate to have good parents. And like, I know they love me but again when you when you spend so much time in in this own bubble of like this own self-loathing and self-hate and self-doubt you you instantly transfer that to like everyone else is like i i think i'm crap they probably know I'm crap. So you kind of transfer that even to family members,

even to close friends. Like, okay, I have, okay, pardon my ignorance on all this. Okay, but so you say, I think I'm crap. But where's that coming from? Because it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on who you are. You know, you're AJ, like a proud woman. It sounds like the anxiety

and i can imagine it was intense and immense is your concern of how society will treat you and view you because of i mean i mean i'm old enough to remember like jokes like i'm oh yeah like you know i mean in fact in fact you just watch friends you you watch an episode of friends on netflix they will make at least two gay jokes an episode and that's only the 90s yeah so right yeah right i mean even how i met your mother like that's late 2000s they go after transgender people on there like like and they use it as a hammer we don't have to go back that far because i just watched uh with my teenagers like two weeks ago i guess i'm thinking my wife is in edmonton we watched the dave new dave chapelle

special on netflix have you seen it no and i don't need to because dave chapelle just does that because he doesn't care he's like um i'm pushing the envelope i'm like well that's great you're not really you know thinking about what you're pushing the envelope on and you're just just kind of using it like as you see fit you're not giving any kind of consideration to the people you're making that joke about and again like for comedy that that was common like they they just like they'll they'll take it they're they're fine like and it's not really because again you're kind of cheapening our own experiences and there's like living breathing human beings uh like like you said you're you're actually seeing buses on pape and you're having you know i don't know what you call fantasies or

thoughts at least of stepping in front of these buses like this is a real potential casualty from your little joke like yet every joke has you know who's the butt of this joke if the jokes that have you know vulnerable human beings as the butt uh are not funny yeah to me anyway yeah and like i i actually did see a video um these are some marrow from uh from the bodega boys they they had the same same kind of thoughts like yeah we used to make those jokes but we don't anymore because we've learned and we've talked to these people it's like oh oh i did not see it that way so you know you can choose to evolve your position and

learn and and get better as a person or you can just whine and moan about it and be like oh you can't make money any other way and just continue on your merry way and you will look like a terrible person and i mean if you want to do that that's fine i i can't stop you from looking like a terrible person but i can say you're a terrible person right so i mean we don't have to go back bottom line is we don't have to go back. Bottom line is we don't have to go back to talk about a 90s sitcom because we can go back to the summer of 2019. And I'm saying this as a guy who I find Chappelle to be very funny. Like, I think he's sharp and funny. Oh, yeah. But I think he's way off base on certain bits, including that one.

Yeah. So if anyone's seen it, and you haven't seen it, but I saw it. I've seen clips i um transgender twitter is not a fan so i i do get to see clips of it even if i don't actively seek it out because like i'm not giving them a view like that's defeating the whole purpose it's like i i'm i'm not giving you any more money for this. So, yeah, you see the clips on Twitter and you're like, your logic is so freaking flawed and it's not even funny.

So I would, so we mentioned the, of course, there's this immense and intense anxiety because you're concerned about how society will react. Like how will your people, you know, you need to feed yourself and have a shelter. I'm sure your family, you don't know how your family will respond, your friends, just walking the streets and just living your best life.

But you said you referred to yourself as a, you thought you were a piece of shit. So where does that come from, I guess? Where's that coming from? I was trying really hard not to swear today, Mike. Oh, I didn't know, because we swear on this show. I know, I know, but I don to swear today, Mike. Oh, I didn't know. Because we swear on this show. I know. I know.

But I don't on mine. Okay. Oh, get me off, Mike. I mean, that's a different story. But I try. How about that? It's up to you. If you don't swear, I won't swear.

But if you swear, I'm going to swear. I know. If you want to do it, you go ahead. I just, I knew that was probably going to come. So I just wanted to. But I think you said the S word first. No, I did not. What did you say? Don't put those words in my mouth.

I have to go back to the tape. What did you call yourself? I said a piece of S word first. No, I did not. What did you say? Don't put those words in my mouth. I have to go back to the tape. What did you call yourself? I said a piece of crap, sir. Okay. So you're the one who escalated it. My apologies to AJ. Okay. But please, can you explain what the root of those that self-hate?

Well, like I said, once you kind of know that you are outside of what society considers normal, you're not looking at that as like a positive thing. Like you're looking at that like, why don't I fit in? Why am I so different? And, you know, you start to think like, it must just be me. There's something wrong with me that I can't do this. And the longer you let it go, the more it just has time to fester and spread until, again, you can't even like build normal friendships. Because you're either too down on yourself to be like oh they didn't talk to me for a day they must hate me and never want to see me again or they know how fake you're trying to be and they never want to see you again so you get all that going and and it just builds and builds until again you you, you look,

you look at the bus windshield and like, that's a good hat. I'll wear that. Oh no. Uh, okay. See, sorry.

I didn't even mean to take off. It's just, I heard you make that reference and I was just curious. Is that, is it coming? Yeah. Because you're not fitting into what society deems as like, like societal norms. You know,

uh, you don't fit into the, I guess what would be societal norms? It'd like i guess heterosexual yeah heterosexual relationships and i guess it would be your gender is uh whatever genitalia you're born with exactly stupid turf arguments that i just i get ticked off every time i see it like like there there's a there's a youtuber that died yesterday from brain cancer and I rarely drink to someone's death but when your wikipedia page's second sentence is a classic turf rallying cry then I get to drink to your death so I am I didn't know about this but oh it's all right you don't the less known about her the better let her fade

into obscurity okay i'm willing to do that because i'm maybe i'm lucky i never heard of her so okay so you're starting to would be that would be the uh would the terminology be come out as a transgender woman yeah starting well we're just starting to uh tell people about your true self scott scott referred to it as his nature when we were talking and it's a good way of saying it like it is your natural state like everything you're you're putting out there when you're when you're in the closet it it is unnatural it is fake it is it is a mask that's why when i eventually wrote the article that's that's why i chose that metaphor oh yeah so yes and uh and here i have uh it's

called burning the mask a blue jay writers announcement okay so yeah get us up to speed first of all how so your parents were they were okay with when they learned this news i think i they were confused let's say that my dad um my dad Toronto native my dad um he's older he's in his 70s so he he was kind of like and then my mom who actually is a conservative she she kept looking for reasons why like she's like you were never feminine as a child you were never you know that kind of person i'm like i lived in truro if i did that i would have been bullied even more than i was for being tiny and right yeah yeah fun fact i did not hit my growth spurt until late high school so but then you made up for it oh yeah no i made up for a lost

time which is great but yeah the the acceptance there was slow and even even up until i wrote the article it was still slow but then you know after that like my mom's messaging like i'm gonna print your article out to show to your grandparents. Oh, wow. Like, like, there wasn't even talk about bringing the grandparents in. But, you know, they got to that point. And, like, when I go visit, like, my dad's really trying to make an effort to, like, use the proper names. Like, they're making their, they're making an inserted effort which which is the big thing

like i know it's probably the hardest for the people who have known you the longest to make that shift so oh for sure yeah so like i said my parents my brother even though he was the first to know he still struggles which means i punch him well i think what would happen is only because this is very silly relation here except that uh i have two sons and they remind me of each other and i'm constantly calling my youngest his name is jarvis but because jarvis i'm constantly calling him james like way too often and it's all it's happening like subconscious like slippage it's i'm not thinking he's james when i call him james it slips out yeah but if if uh if your parents know you as ryan for example for decades it it i think uh slippage subconscious slippage uh could occur oh yeah yeah it's like like i said

especially given how used you get how used to you are to a certain way. And it's part of why when I told them I go by AJ, they're like, oh, why didn't you pick something closer like Rhiannon? Or there are women named Brian. You could have kept Brian. I'm like, no, I don't want to keep Brian. I want to go as far away from that as possible. Does AJ stand for anything?

It does, but i don't reveal that on air oh that's uh that'd be an exclusive no yeah okay i was curious because i think about like aj hoyt right big uh motor car racer um and of course aj burnett there's a whole bunch but okay aj cook the actress so um but yeah um once once i kind of cleared that hurdle like it got a lot easier to just kind of expand it and then i i started taking hormones uh after new year this year so early january um and then once i once that happened it's like okay this is actually happening i can feel it like my mind feels clearer like like you like i said you beat yourself down so much your default state is like depression and sadness and like the second i

started taking hormones it was like like everything just cleared like i felt normal like I felt like myself for the first time interesting and you know as as that happened and you know as I got further along that path it became so much easier to just tell friends and tell people like yeah this is who I am so if you can abide by it that'd be great and for the most part people have there have been a couple instances where people can't deal. But you know what? If you can't, then I don't need you in my life. I was going to ask about those people. Like, is there anyone in your circle of friends or family?

Like, for example, still intent, not talking about subconscious slippage here, which is like going to happen, but like intentionally calling you or anybody who just simply uh for whatever reason thinks it's uh i mean if you throw religion in the mix someone might think it's a sin or a violation of god's law or some nonsense like this luckily my family's never been too religious my dad prefers sleeping in and making breakfast to going to church. So, yeah, set a fine example for the kids. But, yeah, no, there were a couple people, and, like, one of them I knew, like, this is not going to work. Because, like, back when, you know, I was still Ryan, we had conversation one night. He's like, I don't know why these people feel like they have to be transgender why don't you just stay the day way born and yeah i'm like okay i know this friendship has a shelf life good to figure that out so the sooner you know the better so yeah unfortunately

i still see that person from time to time but it's it's fine it's just incredibly awkward and we pass without mentioning each other. So that's too bad. But overall, and then this is we're going to speak separately about the actual article you wrote called Burning the Mask. But so as you start telling people in your circle, friends, family and everything, is it overwhelmingly a positive response? OK, that's fantastic. Like, I told my university circle of friends

on Transgender Day of Visibility this year. That was, like, because I wasn't out at that time, that was kind of my own personal way to celebrate that. And, like, the people who were in there, I'm like, they were immediately supportive. Even people who I thought might have been a little resistant, they're like, you're the third person who's told me today so it's it's fine it's totally fine so you you know when you when you get stuff like that when you do get good people who you know will say that's

great that's you like it it makes it so much easier because you know like there there's that lack of uncertainty that's there when you're kind of holding it in by yourself you know you have that support system so that makes a huge difference as you're going forward and you know eventually getting to the point where you do feel comfortable going like random people just being like yeah i'm a woman yeah and yeah i was gonna say now you you can live your life and do the things people do in their life like go grocery shopping or go get a go mail a letter at the post office whatever people do normal in their normal lives you can be yourself you can be

aj and yeah and and yeah for the most part i'm there like there's still a couple steps obviously like right now the biggest thing i need to do is actually change my name because i mean oh like legally yeah yeah because like you know they're they're asking for ryan at the gate and i'm like oh like do i want to but you know that's that is something that you know you're you're aware of getting into the process process and that is going to be something that that is dealt with like I know I know a lot of people don't like to hear their dead name but because I was so public about it and because I had that public profile before I came out like I know that's going to be a thing there's going to be a before and after. So like, I, I'm, I'm ready for that.

And like, I know what the context is for that. That's, that's a big thing, right? Like you, like you said, like there,

there are people who will slip up and, and use the wrong name or use the wrong pronoun. And then there are people who will deliberately say it and you can hear it in the voice. Cause usually they are assholes about it see that that's as far as i'll go i'll say you said asshole i feel like assholes barely a swear word exactly i mean they stay in on the view but wasn't there uh again before my time but i've done a lot of reading and seen a lot of documentaries but you would still get in like in the 60s and 70s where some old school sports person would purposely refer to Muhammad Ali, for example,

as Cassius Clay. This would be a very intentional knock against their decisions, the Nation of Islam, I guess. Yeah. And so you would definitely know that this is not an accidental slippage. This is meant to be like a knock against somebody

trying to control their own identity. Yeah, exactly. And almost taking offense to like, you don't like the identity I give you. How dare you? I'm going to force it down your throat until you're sick of me. And like I said, usually it doesn't take much to get sick of that, and then you don't hear that person.

And you see the kind of changes in society where those people are starting to get called out and starting to be, I don't want to say reprimanded, but at least shunned or dropped down a peg on the social marker because they're being such assholes so that does make it a lot a little easier and like you know the other thing i tried to do for trans day of visibility was try and actually come up with as many transgender sports writers as i could and like just link them out and I got like five okay great um but five is more I mean I was thinking like if this is all going down in 2019 now but yeah

could you have even hopefully you could have but how would you have felt going through this in 2009 like 10 years ago it feels like I feel like uh that society has come a long way in the past 10 years I mean if i could have pulled it off in 2009 i would have because i mean that would have been 10 years that i would have been able to you know have as aj as opposed to you know like i said live in the fake life yeah one 10 less years wearing a mask exactly so i i'm greatly appreciative of those who did do that at that time and made that sacrifice and made made that effort to be themselves because it did help pave the road for people like me to be themselves and and yeah like i i didn't get to do it at that time. Like I said in the article, if I had come out immediately once I knew, I probably would have taken so much like hits to the mental health that I'm not sure I would have made it.

But, you know, as you see other people get out there, as you see other, other women and other men who take the same steps, it gets a lot easier. And, you know, you know, you have that support and you can just say like, this is who I am. And if you don't like it,

who needs you? When did you decide you were going to write this article again, burning the mask, the blue Jays writers announcement. And, and this was for, what was the naming of the couch? What's the Mask, the Blue Jays writers announcement. And this was for, what was the naming of the couch? What's the name of the couch? Jays from the couch, right?

So when did you decide you were going to write that? I knew when I finally did come out that, you know, it wasn't just going to be that, you know, just subtle shift, like just changing the Twitter handle. Like I knew I had to do something that was going to be out there.

And, you know, as someone who's been writing most of their life, writing about it seemed to be the natural way to do it. So, you know, I had gone over it in my head like so many times, like how I would actually do it so you know I I had gone over in my head like so many times like how I would actually do it like what kind of tone I would use what like what I would actually reference in there and eventually like you you just got to get that out so I started like composing it a little bit. And then, you know, once, once I actually started the process and it's like, all right, let's, let's actually solidify this.

So, you know, I've been working on it for a few months before that. And then I had an editor look at it just, you know, to make sure. I was going to ask you, like,

do you clear it with, uh, like who won't remind me who owns Jays from the couch? His name's Sean Doyle. Right. Do you clear it with Sean for just, do you give him a heads up? Sean, about it like sean knew that plan and like i i said like if if i can do it on your platform that would be awesome because that's where people are

used to reading your stuff right so yeah that's you're already uh well the dead i didn't i never heard that term before either dead name yeah i don't want to use it i don't use a dead name but they know you as a different name. Yeah. And that would make sense that that's where you would tell your story. Yeah. And like, you know,

it is part of who I am and, and it made sense to put it there. And Sean has been a great friend since we started writing together at Jay's journal, which, yeah. What's that for? Let's say they've gone downhill. we started writing together at Jay's journal, which, um, what's that for?

Oh, let's see. They've gone downhill since Keegan left. I can't keep track of all the, I have to apologize. I can't keep track of all the, all the wonderful blue Jay outlets we have in the interwebs. They're a fair amount. Um,

but, but no, like Sean, Sean had known had known and like i told him um i told him like the year before that you know this is this is my plan and you know he's been great um his in his day job he's a teacher so you know he's used to you know being compassionate right and um he's very supportive he's like second you have it we'll just put it out there so i worked on it for a couple months just to make sure i had everything in there that i wanted like i said send it off to an editor who who did the work for free and got it out there.

And like I recorded a podcast episode the same day and I, I sounded pretty bad, honestly, like, like with the emotion of everything, I'm just like kind of a blubbering mess on it. But it's, uh, I'm going to say real talk.

This is, this is, this is, uh, the real is the real talk, right? Like I'm trying to deliver. And, This is, this is, this is, the real is the real talk, right? Like I'm trying to deliver. And,

you know, you mentioned that you, you mentioned that you found there were five transgender sports journalists. Is that what you said? Yeah. Right. Like I was thinking, see you and Scott mentioned this in his clip too.

Now you've become a model for others to follow. Like, it sounds like talking to you and I'll get to this in his clip too now you've become a model for others to follow like it sounds like uh talking to you and i'll get to this in a bit i want to hear first about the reaction to the blog entry and everything but that this is now you you've become a role model of sorts yeah that's that's almost crazy to think like you know i said a lot of working on that article was for myself to be able to like put my thoughts down and like get get everything out of my head and and just just have that kind of release and like i knew what i was doing would be be able to be used by other people who thought who felt that way who who thought themselves like, you know, what am I going to do?

How am I actually going to do this? So to be able to put that out there was also part of the plan. And then like you always wonder like, you know, is this actually going to make an impact? Is this going to help someone? And the fact that, you know, Scottarthur is reaching out to me immediately and just being like you know how how's the reaction how's everything going like that that is so insane did he tell you why he was so uh interested in this or no no but i i i had a thought i had a thought like sc, Scott, are you planning something? Or what's going on?

Wow. It's like, I knew who Scott was. Fun fact, I actually did my internship when I was here at TSN 1050 when Scott was there. So we actually met in passing during that time. Did he remember? No, no. I was not a very memorable intern. My biggest accomplishment there

was bringing Gareth Wheeler Eggos on air. Hey, that's something. Actually, first of all, that's way more mainstream media experience than I have. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so you pressed publish on this. How does it work at J's from the Couch?

Do you press publish on your entries or does it go into some kind of CMS? We do it all in CMS. And then there are editors. There's me. There's Sean. Okay, but when this finally goes live, you're pressing the button is what I there are editors uh there's me there's sean okay but when this finally goes live you're pressing the button is what i'm saying like so there's some symbolism

here like you you're not going to press a button and your story is going to be in public yeah for the world to see and all your the fans of your writing are going to uh 100 see this and you must know that this will be shared because if it's, uh, it's not commonplace. Like at some point this will be commonplace and it'll be yawn. I'm not even going to waste my time sharing. I'm proud of you, but you know, whatever,

but it's still, uh, it's still of significance because it did. I mean, you mentioned the five. I, I don't know. I don't believe I know.

I know maybe these five, I don't know that many sports journalists. I can say it's up to at least seven now. Okay. So, including myself. They're probably all covering football. I don't know any of these people writing about football. About half of them are baseball, half of them are soccer. Okay, see the soccer ones

I wouldn't know. Yeah. Those seem to be the two sports where transgender women can have a career. So, hopefully that will change with more of us coming out. Of course. So you press the button. This goes live.

Yeah. Because Scott talked about shutting down his phone for a while. Yeah. Did you look at immediate responses? Were you curious what the initial response was going to be? Tell us. I actually really couldn't because like initially i was gonna gonna publish it on the monday um but my editor was still looking at it so i had to wait until tuesday and tuesday i'm at my own day job where where i work as a sports editor. And so I basically hit publish before I got ready for work

and then went into work. And I'm like doing that. And it was like a few hours into my shift. I'm like, I should actually see how this is going. And you look at the response and it was so freaking mind blowingblowing like just just everyone just coming in like and like it was all positive like i i had mentally prepared myself like i'm gonna see some terrible language and like i uh i think actually uh one of my one of my fans, Krista King, who's been a great person to talk to on there,

she summed it up great when she said she came there ready to fight people and instead she just wanted to give everyone a hug. Oh, that's fantastic. That was the reaction there. And like, again, you hold it in for so long because of that doubt because you don't know how it's going to be taken once you actually put yourself out there and to have that like I I had to stop myself from like crying at my computer like I don't I don't need to break the work computer with my tears so but yeah it was

so freaking overwhelming and i did my best to like respond to everyone just like you know thank you i appreciate that you know i i all the kind words like it was very very reaffirming you know that you know all these all these people know i no idea who i am other than when i talk about the blue jays like just coming out there and doing that it's just again it it's a it's a life changer like like again you have you have all these clouds and stuff and then all of a sudden they're gone. Everyone wants to be accepted for who they are, right? Yeah. And you lived in great fear that you wouldn't be.

And then you have, and that, you know, you mentioned, you're working away and then you finally check in. But there's a moment there where you realize it's overwhelming acceptance and positivity. And that's the weight of the world coming off your shoulders. Exactly. It is like, you know, like I said, I knew I was throwing away the safety. Like it was going to be out there for everyone. I was burning everything.

And like it was clear like that was that was it it wasn't like a burning bridge it wasn't like you know a tire fire or anything it was just like like a tissue paper mask going up in smoke for a couple seconds and then everything's just clear what was it like for i'm trying to imagine that evening like uh were you like high like i don't mean like you know i know it's legal okay but you know what i mean we're burning something else but you're you i would think this having the weight of the world off your shoulders you'd be floating i would think this is a very euphoric uh feeling it it was it was it like like i couldn't even

contain myself and and like i i hadn't even like i published that i hadn't actually come out at work yet i i was gonna do it like the week before but then like meetings kept getting pushed back so i actually ended up doing it like a week after well there's no chance that there isn't somebody at work who follows and is aware that, Oh, that person we work with also writes on this site and I'm going to follow what they write.

And then, so I'm pretty sure that news traveled quickly that day. Yeah. Well, and my boss knew, like I, I had actually told my boss a year before because you know, when you work in a sports meet sports media environment again that's that's

a big thing like going going into that where where the floor is like 98 percent male you know you right you're you're changing that ratio and you in in sports you wonder how that's going to be taken especially like like um scott said this like all all the athletes in nfl nba mlb nhl it's like 1700 men right telling me not one of them is gay or or or closeted about about something like that's that's just not a possibility but because the culture is what it is they have to hide so you figure people who want to follow sports for a living and like actually you know do that you you have your own doubts about how they're actually going to take it but again um once uh once i actually came out the only question i had to answer was are you still gonna do fast food runs because because my co-worker um andrew angs he's like he's like yeah

um are you are you still gonna go to fast food at lunch because i could still use the mcdonald's and stuff i'm like angs you saw me eating a chicken sandwich earlier. What do you think is going to happen? Yes, I will still get fast food. All right. That is priorities in order. Exactly. That's what matters. He's, you know, salt of the earth, Cape Breton kind of guy. He knows what he wants.

I'm so happy like even just hearing you tell this story like I can see, you know, I can see the tears streaming down your face. Gee. And I have so many questions about... So remind us, though. Was this June?

Remind us when this was published. This was June. June. Okay. All right. So in June, you go live. And the response, there weren't even a couple of assholes in the mix.

It was all good. If there were, I didn't see them. Okay, good. I know Sean said, like, once the article comes up, he's like, if I see anything that is hateful, I'm deleting it immediately. Right, he's moderating those comments. But I'm thinking of, like, Twitter, where he can't moderate those comments. Yeah, exactly.

And, like, again, you think twitter is going to be like that like there there's going to be someone who sees it and they're like like like there were there were accounts that that were using the blue jay's name to promote homophobia um uh it was like always blue jays or something, hasn't been suspended, but still gets to say, why isn't Canada like Brunei? And why don't we stone all the homosexuals? Let me know. Honestly, I got a hookup at Twitter Canada.

Let me know about these accounts with the hate speech because they're supposed to be blocked. Just let me actually get the handle right because that's very close to- You can send it to me by email later. That's very close to another account. And I don't want to send everyone going to Scott like, oh, why are you saying that?

I'm like, I really don't want to do that. But yeah. We'll get our ducks lined up here before we... The actual accountant question blocked me. So I can't see it. And I want to hear about, have there been improvements in your emotional well-being since you came out and were able to live your true life? Well, if we were having this interview last year, there wouldn't have been near as many tears.

actually been a lot healthier for me in that i can you know express that side of me as well and and have those emotions and actually have them on the surface instead of feeling like i have to bury them so just having that kind of openness is is so much healthier as as again as opposed to kind of keeping it silent and staying in the dark about it and you're because you now have a health plan by the way you know what's terrible? That we have this wonderful socialized medicine. We have these wonderful provincial, what's it called in Nova Scotia? We call it OHIP here, but the O is Ontario. Just health NS, pretty much.

So I don't understand why it doesn't cover therapy. Like, I don't understand why you have to pay out of pocket for a therapist. And the insurance companies are not great. Like, I actually didn't get my counselor covered under my work plan because sun life does not consider counselors to be mental health professionals do you get like x dollars a year towards that like a bucket it's 500 bucks yeah awful which that'll get you like two sessions with a psychologist so great

great budgeting we have a long way to go in this regard because I mean, I have the same issue. I don't understand why we don't treat, like have dentistry covered. Like to me, to me and our eyes. Okay. Like why,

why did, who decided, you know, mental health when it comes to therapy or eyes, when optometry or, you know, teeth, who decided that doesn't count for your overall

health this is extra oh yeah and like you know i i actually had to have a tooth taken out because i didn't have dental coverage when i worked at sobeys and i like chipped it and it sat there for like three years i'm like it just got worse and worse and worse until i had to go get like emergency makes no sense makes no sense So this is a whole separate episode. It actually makes no sense, but you did, uh, with your current job,

you, you were able to, uh, afford, uh, to see a therapist. Yeah. And,

and with, um, like I said, my counselor actually wasn't covered, but because my partner had insurance through her work, I was able to use her. that's great. um so yeah but that was that was just huge like like and even getting onto the path and like that that's one

thing i don't think a lot of people realize it's just how much you actually have to do like like i mentioned before i'm next for me is getting my name changed. I have to shell out $200. And then I have to shell out $50 to get fingerprints done. Because they won't let you change your name without fingerprints being on record. And then they're going to like announce it in some paper. Like there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through just to do that. And honestly, there really shouldn't be. Like, I mean, like it's your identity right you're you're trying to take control of it and and just there's so many

hoops like i know people who haven't been able to change their name for like four years and they're just getting it because they had to save up the money to actually do that so they could be referred to by the name they actually go to without having to explain like yeah it's it's an old license so and so that basically you have to go through some hassle here to fully change your name and is that what's next on the the list and then you're done or um no next after that i'll be preparing for surgery. Okay, now, I don't mean to pry, but how much are you willing to divulge in this regard? Sure. It's up to you.

I don't want you to feel pressured. Well, no, no. I am fortunate that Nova Scotia is pretty progressive when it comes to healthcare. They actually do cover the cost of surgery. And the only place in Canada that does it is in Montreal. cover the cost of surgery and like the only place in canada that does it is in montreal so they they actually do cover the cost of going to montreal having the surgery and then staying in montreal for like weeks after because you're you're not moving after that surgery now what is

this surgery exactly like uh is it is it essentially uh we're going really real on this aren't we but it's up to you like i don't want to come across like no pressure here you can tell whatever you're comfortable telling basically it's just gender affirming surgery like like it it just it it um see this is where you have to choose your word carefully because you again it's it's just a surgery that affirms how you feel in your brain working with whatever is there and you know doing what is necessary to get it to the proper configuration so and not all transgender women do this no no it is it is a case- case basis. Some, some women are more than comfortable just being themselves. Some like myself are not. So again, I like, I, I had that question asked by my parents too.

Like, Oh, are you playing on luck? Yes. Yes, I am. Like that, that has not been a doubt in my mind. Um, so yeah, like that's probably not going to be until like next year at the earliest because like I'm still relatively new. Like I said, I've been on hormones for like eight and a half months at this point. So usually they recommend like at least a year before you even start considering surgery. So, you know, that's a ways down the road. But, you know, I can actually see the

goalposts now instead of just continuously pushing them back and moving them more on the horizon. And most importantly, and the reason for all really is your overall happiness. Like, and so if you could compare now now that you know the entries out there you have at least you have a list and you're knocking them down right so you know you will take care of this name change you'll be a pain in the ass but you'll do it yeah and then you'll keep going down your list yeah i'm i've already ticked a lot of things off like i'm i'm like deep into laser um i actually had vocal coaching although although I'm pretty good. I'm very fortunate compared to a lot of other transgender women who, because their vocal cords have already developed

and all that testosterone's hit it, they can't really elevate their voice enough to sound feminine. And that can be a very dysphoria-inducing for a lot of transgender women. And that can be a very dysphoria inducing for a lot of transgender women. I kind of lucked out that I can actually get my voice up. And I'm not sure how good a job I'm doing today, just because I've been screaming at concerts and ball games. So I don't know. I don't know what concert you went to. We'll talk about it if we talked about my music.

But yeah, just getting to that point where where you know you trained yourself enough that this is the default as opposed to like like how i used to sound like when i when i posted the coming out episode i posted a clip of like my second locked on jays and like the contrast from from what i sounded like then to what i sound like now is freaking insane even to me even even hearing it like i i can't imagine like i used to sound like that and now i sound like this and it it it's just another another thing that kind of helps, again, against all the dysphoria of it all. And there hasn't been, I'm hoping there hasn't been,

any reoccurrence of, for example, this thought process when you saw buses on paper. This is all... Well, the buses in Halifax aren't as fast as the buses on paper. So it would be a mild bruise at best. But no, like I said, the second I actually got the hormones and actually started taking them, like it was night and day in my brain. Like there wasn't just that default like self-loathing of like i hate myself why why am i still here

it just instantly lifted and you know you see all these people like oh you shouldn't be giving hormones to people i'm like you don't even know what the situation is. So maybe freaking slow your roll before you start trying to tell other people how to live. The best thing for people, ignorant people of that nature is to have a conversation with somebody like yourself. Like just have a conversation with a human being who's, you know,

going through this and very quickly, uh, the vast majority of people will change their, the tune that they're humming there because uh they'll be able to see a real person and and kind of hear their story and yeah like like we're doing here now which is what my i'm hopeful i'm hoping you know thousands of people will now hear your story uh you know aj's story from aj's mouth and And if there should be any ignorance out there, hopefully this eradicates it.

I would hope so. Because like a lot of it nowadays is just like, like again, like we said, people wanting to impose their own thoughts on your identity, on you, which I mean, that's just fascist. So that doesn't need to be a thing in this day and age we can accept each other's identities and not not have to force things on people now when when scott came uh came out of

the closet in his video and what when you saw that i'm just curious what your reaction was to that. There's a running theme because it was more tears. So I, like I said, I've been talking with Scott. I knew at that point what he was planning on doing. And he messaged me like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this thing. Like, am I getting my facts right? Here's the video you actually sent it to me oh you had a sneak preview i did i did so i i was aware of it

before everyone else was and you know just just hearing him actually say that like like that i again it it is overwhelming because you're just like like um i i actually talked with mike wilner after that and and mike was saying like like you know you don't really realize what kind of impact you did have like even that close that close like like right after close like like right after and yeah it's just like like it's especially you know you know scott's sports net scott's scott's like the he's the man there like the fact that he he's coming down and looking and like seeing seeing me right like just putting that out there yeah no put it out there because it's yeah you're right uh you know you've inspired and uh helped scott who like you said uh that's as big a sports radio station as there is in this country yeah and yeah he's a big deal over there exactly and and like no knowing you can have that kind of impact immediately, it just does a lot for you. It does make you feel like you've helped someone.

You've helped someone get past the same things you did. And like we've been saying, if you can help anyone out of those kind of dark places, like, you know, you feel a lot better about even your own struggles going through that. Because like, okay, it's helped. It's helped someone. So just having that, it's huge. in terms of uh support you know you're from your province from your country like do you feel where do you like do you feel we're where we should be or where should we be doing better to help others like yourself i think we've been on a pretty good path and i think we're seeing some pushback nowadays and i don't want to name names because i don't want to i don't want to get

you in trouble with the elections canada or anything but there are people who are using transgender people as basically a crutch because they don't have any actual policies they just want to blame everything on transgender people and they're terrible for that why won't you name names i don't want to get you in trouble, Mike. Me? I have named names on Twitter and I've had people be like, oh, but he's fine. He just wants to give power to the people.

No. Have you not learned anything from everything in politics that's happened in the past three years? He does not have your best interests. Maxime Bernier only cares about himself. Freaking get that through your head. He only wants people who only share his viewpoint and will give him all the credit and stop freaking supporting him because he has no idea what to actually do to run the country. He just

wants to cast blame. And it's really frustrating to see it every time because he does he does that to transgender people he does that to people um on the autistic spectrum he does that to basically everyone who doesn't share his aryan view of life do you know he came this close and on a podcast this is i have to just trust me he came this close to being the leader of the conservative party. Okay. Yeah. This close. Yeah. Andrew Scheer is not much better, but yeah, no, just that, that kind of backlash to, to the progress that has been made.

It's frustrating to see it take hold with some, with people who will, who will let it slide. Really? Just like, well, he says these horrible things and hangs out with faith goldie who's a garbage person but he's gonna lower taxes like really really he's you think he's gonna he's

gonna do that for you and and then and then you're just throwing you know queer people under the bus for for your taxes for for like a minuscule cut on your taxes he's not giving you the tax cut we all know that he's giving it you the tax cut. We all know that. He's giving it to the corporations. You're preaching to the choir here. Now, I have to apologize to you that I didn't load any songs for you. So can you remind me? But I can go to YouTube and play it.

If you remind me, what song would you like me to play right now as we just chat a tiny bit about music before we take our photo here? What was the song again? I have no... I had like 10. My life has been the last few weeks i had like 10 because like like you didn't send me 10 songs yes i did i sent you a list of 10 are you 100 are you sure i have no memory i can pull up the email on my phone i know i sent you a list of 10 i i have okay so i have to i apologize to

aj that uh i missed this it's all right that that means you wouldn't have had time for that anyways but if there was one song i was gonna play now what would be that one song i think did we originally say you're gonna kick out the jams yeah okay because i uh forgot that so 100 because i realized it would take 90 minutes to talk about uh what your work uh for the jays and your story that I thought was very important and wanted to share yeah but I can play one song all right I I will give you the one song and it does tie back to the concert that I was at last night okay what is it um it's called we move forward it's by the midnight it's a long one so i'm not expecting you to play all of it but okay we'll start it up here and uh if i can find it on youtube that would

be it all right oh i have an issue this is a i have a this is a separate issue i have a never mind i'll do something don't worry you a vamp here that's what we say okay well I um one of the reasons why I did come to Toronto was to see the midnight because they're stopping in like Toronto and Vancouver and um oh drive the movie drive is this song from the is Is this artist in the movie Drive at all? I'm not sure. No, maybe I'm confusing things. I'm not sure. I haven't seen Drive. It's excellent.

You should see Drive. But no, I found them through a trance podcast because I listened to Above and Beyond and they did a guest mix on there. And it was so unlike what I had heard before like it's not actually in the song but they they incorporate a lot of 80s stuff like saxophone like like Jacob who's the saxophone player last night at the concert at the Danforth Music Hall was freaking amazing like just the sheer talent that was on display but i picked this song because this is the one that resonates

the most with me and it does with a lot of transgender people and other people i like if you um i did like that 30 song day thing and they're like pick the song that most represents you. And because I hadn't come out yet and been honest, the song I picked back then was called Mess of a Machine by John O'Callaghan. Because that's how I felt. Like, I was broken and just never going to work. And then, like I said, I heard The Midnight and i started going through their stuff and this song is so so hopeful and about you know like like it says in the title moving forward and it just keeps you going like that and just keeps like like peace like that. And it's such a good message. Like when, when he,

when Tyler actually started singing, I will shut up. But just, just that kind of message is so important. I think, I think it comes here. Thank you. The eclipse and the rain came pouring, so I heard a marching band. We will follow, cause we can go back We will follow, cause we can go back Cause we can't go back. We won't fall. Cause we can't go back.

We won't fall. Cause we can't go back. Yeah, so, like, just that kind of feeling. Yeah. Like, it's night and day. Like, that's the kind of feeling I have now, now that everything's out. AJ, I'm so happy for you. Like, I can just, this has been tremendous,

and I'm so glad you could fit me in on this whirlwind, this whirlwind visit. Honestly, it's, it's been no problem at all. Like I, like I, I don't even know what time it is anymore, but it hasn't mattered because that's a good feeling,

right? The conversation has been so good. And next time you come back, we'll kick out those jams. Okay. Sounds good. But I'm so happy for you. And thank you so much for your honesty in sharing this story.

Yeah, no problem. Like I said, now it's out there, next time we can focus on the music. And that brings us to the end of our 511th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. AJ, what is your Twitter handle? It is A underscore

J underscore Andrews because Twitter is dumb. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Everybody, make sure I see you

on the patio Thursday night 6 to 9 p.m. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. I know Brian will be there because he's going to buy a beer for Hebsey because Brian said Serena was going to beat Bianca in the U.S. Open final.

How dare he? I know. Because he was there in New York to watch and said Serena was playing the best tennis of her career. So, yeah, we'll talk about that on Thursday. Who we got? Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Again, the contest details come out Thursday. Capadilla LLP is at Capadilla LLP. And Pumpkins After Dark are at PumpkinsAfterDark.com. See you all tomorrow when it's another Maritimer writing about the Jays. Well you've been under my skin for more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold