Transgender journey a ‘complicated masquerade’
Greg Martin moved away from Moose Jaw 23 years ago, but people are still talking about the person they used to know.
Well-liked, funny, attractive, a successful athlete, Martin became a firefighter and lived in the Friendly City until moving to Vancouver at age 29.
Even so, Martin wasn’t expecting people to be quite so friendly this week.
Gregory Joseph Martin, who goes by Josi now, came out as a transgender woman two years ago.
The news was enough to shock Martin’s old friend Ken Dalgarno, a writer and artist who lives in Moose Jaw.
“Just like everyone, I basically fell out of my chair when Josi announced she was transitioning or was a woman,” said Dalgarno. “That chasm between alpha male and gorgeous female was pretty big. Surreal.”
Martin’s story is the subject of Dalgarno’s first film, Josi Victoria: A Complicated Masquerade, which is having its world premiere at the Regina International Film Festival on Thursday.
Participating in an hour-long documentary was not Martin’s initial inclination when she came out.
“I wanted to just drift quietly into the sunset with my transition,” said Martin. “I was going to tell some friends and I felt I wanted to keep it fairly private, but something this big really couldn’t be kept under wraps.”
People were talking about it, and many were surprised that Martin was able to act the manly man all these years.
“Here’s the thing,” Martin explained. “I’m a very rational person, I’m very realistic, and I knew the cards I was dealt and I knew the options I had.
“My dad came from that generation where he would have no tolerance for it,” Martin continued. “Right from the start, I would have curtailed and started filtering anything feminine coming to the surface. And once you’re conditioned for this, you end up being quite adept at it.”
Were it not for Alzheimer’s, Martin knows her father Donald would be struggling with this new reality.
Martin played football at Central Collegiate, and was part of the national champion Saskatoon Hilltops and the Saskatoon Huskies.
After high school, Martin became a career firefighter, beginning in Moose Jaw and retiring in 2015 as a captain in Coquitlam, B.C.
“She was a very successful man, excelled at being a man for that much,” said Dalgarno.
But in spite of that persona, Martin doesn’t believe her femininity was entirely hidden.
At the firehall, Martin’s co-workers sometimes teased their strongest brother.
They once joked after reading a newspaper preview that Martin would be attending The Vagina Monologues.
“Box seats, front row, season tickets,” Martin cracked back. “You cut jokes with it and that was the end of it.”
By age 40, the facade was weighing on Martin, who performed in drag in secret as her alter ego Victoria.
At 45, an epiphany, as Martin realized she was financially able to retire by 50: “A little voice in the back of my head said, ‘You can be a girl.’ Suddenly I had an option.”
Starting hormone therapy at 48 changed her workplace relationships.
“It was completely horrible, because I was lying to them,” said Martin. “They all thought I was sick” when she quickly dropped 40 pounds of muscle.
Developing breasts, “I couldn’t shower with the boys anymore, because that would have been a little bit too colourful.”
It wasn’t long after she came out on Facebook that members of the Coquitlam fire department heard the rumour and offered Martin their support.
Dalgarno began filming over three days in March 2016.
Two weeks thereafter, Martin had breast surgery and a nose job. In September, she had “bottom surgery.”
Dalgarno returned to Vancouver in February to finish filming the documentary, which also includes interviews with Martin’s partner and a former co-worker.
“It was challenging at times,” said Dalgarno. “I’m seeing this woman in front of me but I’m hearing Greg’s voice.”
In recent reunions with old friends, Martin believes “it does them well to see Josi and … see how natural it is and how happy I am.”
“Sooner or later they just say, ‘That’s just Pinky with different window dressing.’ ”
The Grade 9 nickname has stuck, a casualty of embarrassing puberty voice-cracking.
Josi Victoria: A Complicated Masquerade screens at 9:45 p.m. Thursday at the Cineplex Southland theatre.
It has its Moose Jaw premiere on Sept. 16 at the Mae Wilson Theatre.
In March, it will be part of the Creation International Film Festival in Ottawa.
The Regina International Film Festival runs through Friday, screening films from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The red carpet event and awards ceremony is Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the University of Regina.
Visit riffa.ca for more information.