In most ways, he’s a typical Squamish teen.
Grade 11 Howe Sound Secondary School student Tobin Eckstein is currently tackling the course work that piles up with the approaching end of the school year. He’s also involved in school clubs and is performing in an upcoming school play. Outside of school, he creates graphic novels and enjoys hanging out with his friends, his brothers and his cat.
He is also one of the subjects of an upcoming documentary about his journey as a transgendered young person.
TransCanada, due out late this summer, examines the lives of three transgender people.
Sean Horlor, producer and director of TransCanada with Nootka St. Film Company, said, “We were looking for a teenager or young adult who was sort of at a crossroads in their life and that is Tobin.”
The filming for the documentary wrapped up in Squamish over the weekend.
The two other people featured are trans women: Anne Gibson, 52, who lives in Jasper and Angela Reid, 40, a roller derby player and human rights activist in Calgary.
Eckstein, 17, who moved to Squamish last year from Kelowna, said something felt wrong when he was about four or five years old.
“I just remember having feelings of being masculine,” he said.
“I had these feelings like I want to be a boy, but I didn’t know what transgendered was, I had never heard it. I had never met anyone who was trans.”
He said coming to Squamish and finding a system of support through the Diversity Club at the high school, friends and adult mentors, he has been able to accept who he is and wants to be – a man.
The path to living comfortably in his own skin has been a rocky one at times.
His parents have not been supportive, he said.
He currently lives on a government youth agreement with a friend and her family because he couldn’t live with his parents, he said.
Living in a female body, knowing he is a male, is difficult, he said.
“I avoid looking at myself in mirrors. I slouch because it makes me feel so uncomfortable,” he said of having breasts.
He’s planning to have top surgery in January when he turns 18 by a Miami surgeon well known in the transgender community. Eckstein has started a You Caring crowd funding page, titled Support Tobin’s Top Surgery, to help pay for the $14,000 operation.
But transitioning isn’t all pain and discomfort, he said.
He said he can imagine a life for himself now in great part thanks to the acceptance he has found in Squamish.
“When I was younger, and not yet out, I couldn’t imagine a life for myself,” he said. “I didn’t want to be seen as female, no matter what my path of life was. Now, I am excited for my future. I can imagine being a dad, a husband, an artist, an avid traveller; I can see all the potential possibilities for myself.”
TransCanada, which was funded by a Telus grant, will be available for free later this summer on Telus Optik TV or online at optiklocal.com/watch-videos.
