An interview with York grad and transgender icon Nina Arsenault

Paul McLaughlin
Contributor (This Magazine)
Nina Arsenault has spent a fortune changing her appearance from male to female. The 37-year-old used to work in the sex trade, but now supports herself as a playwright, performer and motivational speaker to queer youth. Her one-woman show, The Silicone Diaries, recently had a second highly successful run in Toronto, was later performed in Montreal and will open in Vancouver next year.
MCLAUGHLIN: Where did you grow up?
ARSENAULT: In Beamsville, Ontario in the Golden Horseshoe Trailer Park. It was a really tight knit community. My memories of it are just great. But we moved when I was about six to a house in Smithville. It was very difficult to make friends because I was so feminine. Growing up in the trailer park and going to school with those kids, they always knew how girlish I was. With everyone on top of each other you have no choice but to accept people. [Then I moved and] being the new kid it was very, very difficult to make friends. I have been a bit of a lone wolf all my life.

M: In The Silicone Diaries you talk about seeing a female mannequin in a store at age five. What was it that affected you that day?
A: I think just the harmony and symmetry of the face spoke to me. I knew that I was a girl inside but I had this boy body. Then, for my visual gaze to rest upon a face that was a sculpture of a woman’s face, I just seized on that as a child. It affected me, the perfection of it.
M: When did you decide to begin plastic surgery?
A: About age 23, but I didn’t have my first procedure until I was 25.
M: What did you have done?
A: At first, just transsexual procedures to feminize myself. It got to a point where I looked as much like a normal woman as I possibly could; however, I still had masculine features. It was really traumatic on a daily basis to see those features. So I made the decision to really push the cosmetic procedures, knowing I would no longer look natural, that I would start to look plastic and artificial.
M: Like a mannequin?
A: Yeah. But I can’t say at the beginning of the journey I was trying to look like a mannequin or a Playboy bunny. I was just trying to be a woman.
M: Did you literally have 60 surgeries?
A: There were actually more. Some were just procedures, like a lip injection.
M: When was the last one?
A: In 2006.
M: How much did they cost?
A: Upwards of $200,000.
M: How did you afford that?
A: I was working in the sex trade and made an incredible amount of money so quickly there.
M: Men like “shemales”?
A: Yeah. In terms of supply and demand, there just aren’t a lot of us, but there’s a lot of interest. The first day I put my escort ad in the paper, I had 250 calls. I don’t think that’s something that’s spoken about that openly amongst otherwise heterosexual men. I could have worked from morning until night if I had wanted to.
M: What was it like working in the trade?
A: It was physically very tough. And I only did oral, no fucking.
M: A lot of transgender women work in the sex business. Why is that?
A: It’s one of the few places you can get work and feel safe. If you’re visibly transgender you’re going to be one of the most disenfranchised and disadvantaged people in culture.
M: You have two graduate degrees, right?
A: I do. But it’s tough to get straight work. You can’t imagine the amount of transphobia out there.
M: How long have you been out of the trade?
A: About three years. I support myself now as a performer.
M: In the play you mention that you have had your testicles removed. But you kept your penis. Why was that, if your goal was to be as close to a woman as possible?
A: I never knew what would happen to me financially so [if I still had my penis] I could always return to the sex business.
M: What has the play done for you?
A: It has been an incredibly healing ritual. I think I wrote it because I had a lot of emotional angst and suffering that I needed to express, that I needed someone to bear witness to. It makes me stronger every time I perform it.
M: Do you feel 100 percent female now or still a bit male?
A: I’ve always known I was a woman but I was socialized as a male. I have some qualities people see as male – I’m an aggressive thinker – but my core is definitely female.
M: Do you feel beautiful enough now?
A: I don’t work on the outside anymore. I concentrate now on inner work.
M: Any more surgeries ahead?
A: No. Not until I start to really visibly age.
This piece is reprinted with the permission of This Magazine. For more articles on Canadian politics, pop culture and the arts, check out  www.this.org.