Celia is an Asian Indian gender fluid, non-op trans woman of color who is an entrepreneur, musician, photographer, storyteller, activist and filmmaker. She writes and speaks passionately about her struggles and challenges she faced in her family, work, and community both in the US and India. As a management consultant with top fortune 100 companies, she educates, empowers, and advocates for transgender and gender non-binary individuals in the business world.
Celia brings an amazing intersectional blend of ethnicity, creativity, culture, religion, and corporate experience in her activism. Received the 2019 Human Rights Campaign’s equality award for“ Outstanding commitment and service to our community”. She is currently in the Executive Board for Trans Can Work and the VP of Stonewall Democrats of Ventura County, California.
Growing up as a lonely closeted trans child in a conservative middle-class Christian home in Southern India, Celia writes and speaks passionately about their inner struggles, gender dysphoria and social challenges she faced in her family, work, school, and community both in the US and India.
This episode we discuss
🌈The intersection of misogyny, racism, and transphobia
🌈Surviving years of gender dysphoria with moments of gender euphoria
🌈Reclaiming personal power through intersectional activism
🌈Living for yourself and learning to follow your internal compass
Episode Resources
Connect with Celia
www.linkedin.com/in/celiasandaniels
Your story is fascinating. I first heard your story at a meeting that I saw advertised on LinkedIn about fighting patriarchy and misogyny and discrimination in general. Have you always had this intersectional way of looking at discrimination because the way you presented it, how seeing things in a hierarchical way, believing and patriarchy and putting men above everyone else is part of a bigger system of problems that we have, where we disrespect, all kinds of people? Have you always understood how massive the problem is, but at the root of it, it's really one problem with many faces?
I thank you for that question because this, the problem of discrimination started for me when I was a child. And I knew that I was different, but at the time when you come out, I think the worst time that I felt the discrimination all around me, three 60 degrees was while I was you know, someone caught hold of me as a trans person.
I was walking in my ninth grade; I was walking outside and I got caught. That evening was I would say one of the most devastating time that I ever faced discrimination and hate and its fullness. I was just 11- or 12-year-old boy wearing a skirt and a top and a hijab, you know, scarf black thing around my head.
But what I found was. Why are they hating me without knowing me? They don't know who I am, but they hate me so much because of people like me. And that was so clear. And I lived in a beautiful community. My dad was well reputed. He had a great reputation. My parents had a good reputation in that community.
And I was like this to me, the shame was so, so magnified that I did not want to bring any of this outside. So that was the first time I faced such a lot of strong discrimination. They publicly humiliated me like 20 minutes, and I wasn't sure what the outcome would be. And I somehow, I spoken another language and ran away from the place.
That was the first time I think I've faced actual public discrimination from the public, you know that this commission has two types. One is you feel sometimes within, inside when you're in a place that. I think I will not be comfortable here. And that is another way of kind of sensing that, Oh, this is not a place that I'm going to be welcomed and that I have faced a lot, but the other side of it is when you are there and you're not expecting any uncomfortable situation.
And then people are reacting to the fact that you are different and that's another type of discrimination that I faced as well. So, to me it's been a lot, I mean I would say it's just been continuing and since my childhood, I would say when you left the house that day,
Did you think since you really weren't doing anything, just walking that it really wouldn't be a problem that you were just minding your own business and nothing would happen.
Yeah, absolutely. And I also thought that since I was presenting as a girl, they would be more compassionate to me, you know, they wouldn't because you know, in India, sometimes when you have a girl, they try to kind of give you a pass.
Okay. She's a girl, you know, that's fine. We will let her go. And I thought they would let me go because I was presenting as a goal, but I was facing the rat of being a boy dressed like a girl, which was even more intense at the time. I wanted to have a good time that evening because that's the first time in my life.
I went out as Celia and this was in my ninth grade. I don't know where I had the courage, but I just felt like I had to come out and I wanted to feel the air on my face. And I wanted to experience that whole environment around me and enjoy the environment. So, I chose a dusk time to come out. It was almost dark.
I didn't want to be out there in the daylight, so I chose that kind of time. But even that backfired for me. I still remember that evening and I don't think I can ever fuck it that night when I came back home, that's what I felt like. I was so afraid to live. I tried taking my life, you know, he was trying all the ways of, okay, how do I do it in a, what do I do?
I can't live like this. It's going to be hard.
Is that the first time you realize that people had such hateful attitudes about trans people, that your life could be in danger? When you're just walking around, minding your own business.
I know I have seen hijira community in India getting beaten from the train.
And I actually saw during one of my scout camps that I was going to another place. And I was in this train and I saw three trans women getting beaten. And they were literally, they were asking them to get out of the next get out in the next station. And they were just standing there asking for money because they were begging you could just say, you know, I don't have money, but they were so angry.
They just pulled out their footwear and they were ready to beat them with that. And to me, I was thinking, oh my God, I am you, but I don't identify with you. And I identified with you, but I don't want to be you this is not what I want I would say I was just hiding my identity.
I didn't want to the world to see that, that shame. I didn't want to go through that shame. I didn't want to experience that shame. So, I just sucked it up and said, you know what? I'm never going to come on because this is what is going to happen to me if I come out. So that is how you know, people graduated in India.
And once I saw that that was in my mind all the time that if I come out, this is what's going to happen. But even in spite of that, I tried to come out, which was like, okay, I'm not exactly a Hydra. I'm a boy dress like a girl, but immediately the society just took me and just put me in that category. And they started treating me like, I'm going to beat you up.
You don't belong here. You're this comes of the society. You know, you're this calm and you have to, we want to teach you a lesson and we want to tell your dad that you need to, you need to change. You can't do this. Something like that.
I know to a lot of people in the US, India feels like it's so far away. It seems like a lot of us don't know much about India, especially when it comes to gender non-conformity.
I know I was under the mistaken impression that there was more flexibility there and that people understood that there's always been more than two genders, maybe from imagery that I've misunderstood or something. I thought that it was acceptable to be trans there. I know it's a massive country, so.
Still, I don't know what region I was thinking was more accepting, what is it really like? And how would you define what a headgear a person is and what their role is?
What are you saying is absolutely right, India was that way, a seven, seven, 10,000 year old culture, you know, the Hindu mythology.
And if you look at some of the pranas or the vedas that is that they call, these are all. The historic books that get written in Sanskrit, there was always a fluidity in gender, even the gods that are in the Hindu gods and the gods and mythology were always having a dual agenda and they had male gender and female unit.
And that's how it was. And India was very gender fluid. India was very, it was living. I mean, everyone was in a spectrum at the time, but when the colonial government came in and that's when they boxed everyone into the binaries. So, the hijira community were basically revered in the temples that they were, they were blessing the children.
They used to go and bless the marriage. They used to go on for any occasion. A good occasion in a person's life and a family, they would invite the hijira community to go and bless them because they felt like you were such a special person. You're not a male or a female. You're a very special being.
And we reveal you for that. And that's how they were kept as a very important person. They were almost like priests. And but once the whole thing got dismantled, the colonial government came in, they didn't know where to go. And that's when they went into hiding, they didn't know what to do.
They were begging and they were, they wanted to make money and They lived in a society where they were, you know, their forefathers were probably even living very comfortably and suddenly everything was gone. And they went back into sex work begging and you know, singing in the streets and they were always considered as the low bottom of the food chain, I would say.
That's the way the hijira community is an India. It's like man woman. And then you have other people, you know, cast ism within India, then there's then the disabled people and, you know, they, the category is all that. And then if you see the bottom of the food chain there, that that's when the trans people are today.
And for me to be a man to go all the way down to the bottom of the food chain and identify with that particular identity was a big shame for me. But I didn't, I was thinking maybe I can just get over it because I didn't like it. But to me, I couldn't avoid that whole process of hiding my identity. And that's why India has always been that way.
Unfortunately, even today, now there are lots of laws that came in and they decriminalized, the and you'd be in Q community, I would say more LGB. Oh, okay.
But no advancements legally for trans people?
Not yet. No trans folks were bare, always kept in the, like you exist, but we're not going to give you importance.
But when it came to LG and B they were considered as how these are people who are having sex with the same, same kind. And we don't want them to be that way. And we have to, you know, criminalize these people and that's when they put this the legal system of three 77, you know, they, they, they created a law in the Supreme court, and they said people who are having same sex relationship need to be arrested and they will be punished.
And only recently that was decriminalized, which was, it took a long time, but the trans community did not fall into that because they were predominantly, they would thought the transgender community is always male to female, but. The female to male and gender fluid and gender nonbinary, gender queer people were hiding because they didn't know where to go.
You have to either come out and become a hijira or you don't know where to go. So, there was a lot of ambiguity when you're in the transgender spectrum and that's what I was dealing with when I was a child.
That's so, so much. And then to see that the only adults that you can identify, Oh, I'm kind of connected to this person or having a horrible experience.
That must be really devastating. I know a lot of people who never knew there was another trans person on the planet, except them when they were kids, they thought they were all alone. I don't know which would be worse knowing how the trans people in your community are being treated or thinking that you're the only one in the world.
I exactly felt what he said. You know, I felt like I'm the only person in the world. And if I'm dealing with this particular issue. So, when I was four years old, I knew I was different. I told her mom and I wanted to be a girl because that's the only thing I knew at the time. I couldn't tell, I want to be a transgender.
There was no media at the time. There's no social media living on radio. The only audio we had was the radios in our house. And so, coming out in that kind of an environment, I nobody influenced me. I didn't see anything. And I said, I want to be that it was in my head. And I, as soon as I was growing up, I knew, I clearly remember that day.
I was sitting in the laundry basket and I was covering my head with my mom's salary. And I kept telling her I'm a girl. And my mom is to what are you hiding? And I'll be like, Oh, I'm here. And I was such a small child, very innocent, but mom liked it. She thought I was cute, and it was playing. I was a second child, and I was a boy.
And my brother was a boy, so they wanted to go. And unfortunately, I told her to the boy, but my mom didn't know that I was she thought I was kidding, but when I was seven years old, that's when gender concept came into my head where my mom said, you cannot be wearing the skirts anymore. You know, you cannot be running around like this because you're a boy.
To me only, then it hit, Oh, I am actually a boy it's I cannot be gender fluid. Can I just wear a skirt? I kept asking my mom, I can, I just read a skirt. And they said, no, you cannot. And that's when it hit me that, Oh, I have to go into the closet, and I didn't know what to do. It was like taking away something from you and saying you can't do it.
I didn't have an alternate at the time. And I was thinking, oh my God, what am I going to do? I'm just, my world was falling apart. And that's what happened. My agenda wasn't doing justice to my anatomy. It was something within me and I was going through gender dysphoria at the time, which I know now.
But at the time I was the only person I thought I'm the only boy in the planet who wants to be a girl but doesn't like to be you know doesn't like boys. So, I was so I still I, I'm not interested in men, you know, I, I'm not attracted to men at all. So that's how I was. And I grew up that way, thinking that.
Oh, then I'm really not gay at the time. It was more of a queer sense. You could know that there were some boys who were very feminine. Of course, you didn't know anything about girls. Girls always had feminine there. Some of them who had tomboys or whatever, but boys, it was very clear.
You know, you’re a butch boy, you have to be really masculine in what you do. You cannot be this feminine boy, because if you're a feminine boy, you got dead in India, they beat you up and you're gone. So, to me, I felt like, Oh, I have a very unique identity. And I thought, well, maybe I'm the only person on this planet and it's probably going to go away.
And that's how I started my life. I thought it was going to go away.
It's so interesting that you knew. Your true gender so early before puberty, because I know for some kids, gender doesn't even cross their mind until puberty. So that's really fascinating. And I've, I've heard that from multiple trans people.
So, I wonder maybe it's being told that you can't express yourself, that makes you so acutely aware of who you really are. So small. That's fascinating.
Well, what changed in your adulthood that made you move to the United States and start expressing yourself again?
So, I was struggling with my agenda identity while I was in high school and I sincerely prayed.
At the time I used to go to the beach and pray and I asked God saying that God, please change me. I don't want to be a goat. Because it's so hard for me to be a girl. And I, I, my part of my life, you know, part of my being kind of tells me that I want to be a gun, but I don't want to be a girl. I, so please change me.
Nothing happened, none of that happened. So, I was like, Oh my God, what's going on with me? And so, there was a time when I, I, I started working and I did well in my school. I did well, I got, I was a president scout. I got an award from the president of India. And I also got in modern music. So, music kept my mind more busy and I was on stage.
I was performing and I was so happy because I got the attention I wanted as a boy. And all the girls were all like, oh my God, we love your music. And I was like, Oh, nice. So, I was enjoying all the attention at the time. And I was just gloating in that while when I come back to my room, And I'd be like, oh my God, I want to wear a skirt.
I really want to wear a skirt now. And what happened to all that masculinity and the boyish brash thing. It just, just went away because deep inside, I was such a soft girl, you know, like feminine girl inside and I didn't know what to do. So, I just kept on living like that for a while. And outside, I was always like a brash person, you know, started to be more arrogant, is more I would say aggressive.
That's how I thought, you know, I should express my, my masculinity so that nobody would suspect that Daniel was actually a trans person. So, I completely was pretending at the time and I got a great I got a good job. I was working for dun and Bradstreet at the time. And I remember there was a project that came up and they wanted me to travel to the U S and just before I was try and planning to make my trip.
And I'm my parents said, Oh, would you like to get married? Because we don't know what's going to happen to your carrier and what are you going to do? So, I said, sure, let me check it out. And so, I saw this beautiful girl, they just gave her a profile and I met her and I immediately fell in love and we both fell in love with each other because it was natural for me.
I was attracted to girls. I saw her, you know, her lipstick and her face and the way she was, you're so pretty. And I was like, oh my God, I really love you. And I got mad at, you know, we, we were so happy, and we came to this country. I started working in New York at the time and I was working for some of the fortune 100 companies, which was like at ASCO and IMS and lots of these big, big, big names.
I was doing well at work. So, I started focusing on my work. And for me work kind of kept me away from thinking about Celia. Hmm, so that I didn't have to focus too much on it. So, my work was almost like packed with them for 12 hours a day. And I would just sit in the office and I'd keep on working late and I'll come home at eight o'clock in the night, have dinner and then go to sleep.
My wife was not very happy, but I said, Hey, I have the weekends for you. Weekdays don't bother me.
You mentioned that you saw her in a book. So, did your parents pick out like lots of possible suitable partners and then present them to you?
Yes, it was an arranged marriage.
I didn't know they would give you options though. I thought they would be like, Hey, we found this one person.
No, they get, you know, it's like it's actually like some friends arranging a date for you. And it's just that the parents are bringing a date for you saying that, okay. You don't have time to find a girl.
We found a girl, you know, they're good parents. Would you like to check it out? This is a picture. This is our profile. So, they kept all that for me. And I was like, okay, let me check it out. That's, it's arranged marriages more, almost like E-harmony,
But it's with people who actually know you doing all the legwork, that actually sounds like a pretty good idea.
It sometimes works. Sometimes it's you know, it's mostly post-marriage romance. You start your entire life, and you allow only after you get married. So, you're like locked up. No option. You can't escape.
You mentioned you went to a fortune 500 company, lots of work hours, lots of work.
I was, I was working really hard, and I was doing very well at work. And my boss was very impressed with what I was doing, and they sent me to higher up positions. They kept on moving me. And I was a partner in the company too.
And this was a company where it's not like a small company. It's almost like 200,000 people, the CEO of the company he knew me personally because I had started with this company and he knew me very personally and always put me in positions where I could really take the company forward.
I was managing a large team. I was implementing huge projects. I was handling millions of dollars and I ran the life sciences healthcare in the West coast at the time. And I remember many times I wanted to come out and I remember while I was traveling from state to state, I will implement the business.
I would go and up with a strategy for them. It could be SAP, it could be enterprise-wide CRM activities. It could be a lot of enterprise-wide solutions that we present it. And I had large teams back in India and Europe and not America sometimes in Argentina as well. So managed teams and what happened was, you know, I was so successful, and I was kind of getting to a point where I could not, I was not taking care of Celia.
So, my gender dysphoria was slowly acting up. So, what I would do is I would give a bread business presentation and we will win a deal. We will have a happy hour. I'll just come back to my room. I will slip on a maxi skirt or a maxi dress. I will put on makeup, I'll put on my wig and everything, and I'll sit in front of the middle of the night and just cry because.
Agenda does 40 of us so intense and I didn't know how to handle it. And I would just think to myself, I just want to be this go. You know, why can't I just be this girl? Why am I being someone else? And I don't want to do it because it's and I was afraid to come out. I was an executive. Everyone like, Oh, Daniel is a great person.
And at the same time, I was always struggling inside personally. I was struggling professionally I was thriving. I was doing very well. I had stocks, I had booked my, I mean, I had a house in California. I was very successful. My wife was super happy because, you know, she said, I think I made the right decision.
So, I came out to her. I told her sweetheart; I'm going through some problem. And then this was in 2004. Professionally that's how I came to this country. And I came as an immigrant at the time in 97 and I started working for these companies and I was I was quite successful, and you know, in what I did
Did it cross your mind that maybe this was a place where Celia could live?
Absolutely. That's what I was hoping. I lived in different parts of the country. And whenever I go to a particular state let's say I was in Phoenix. And then during my business trips, I traveled all over the country. Whenever I go, I'll always have Celia suitcase, it'll have Celia's clothes in it.
Well-priced and very clean. And as soon as I get to my room, I will have my meetings the next day. But that night I will always go the previous evening so that I could spend some time with Celia. And that was my personal time. And I was happy. It was so happy just looking at myself and I was like, God, why is this like this?
You know, I, I didn't even find that happiness. Even if you give me a million dollars, I wasn't that happy was like, okay, great. But to me, just looking at myself as this person in front of my mirror is actually me the true person. And that was so. I would say so fulfilling and it was so joyful to me. I wanted the joy.
I was thinking to myself, what do I do for me to hold on to Celia? Do I am struggling as Daniel and see what do I do? And I then realized that there were times when I did not want to transition because I liked being Daniel in my life. And I did not hate being Daniel or being who I was in my birth gender.
But I prefer that my preferred gender, you know, I lived, I wanted to live in my preferred gender do I was struggling in my birth gender. And as soon as I go to my preferred gender and MCI should be happy and I'll be spending a whole in a nighttime, just dancing in the room or watching something do some get some food.
I'll walk around the hotel lobby people. You know, even if they knew I was trans, they didn't bother much, depending on the state, there are some States where I got you know, I'll get a catcall or sometimes people would say, Hey, faggot, you know, yell at me. And I remember in Pennsylvania, I was walking on the, on the road, which is in a, in a, in a side street.
There was a truck that came with a lot of boys sitting in the back. And I remember they just looked at me and they started yelling at me faggot. And I was, I didn't know what they were saying. I didn't know how to react. I just looked at him and smiled and I walked away. And now I realized that those are the kinds of people who are actually scaling the walls of the Capitol building.
Yes, because they were not good people. I didn't know what kind of flags they were flying at the time in Pennsylvania, but I. You know, for me, I've been in places where I could have got hurt. I could have got killed. But I was, you know, for some reason I was, I didn't know much about what was going on around the hate.
And when people call me faggot, I would be like, it's okay. You know, you're calling me a faggot. I'm fine with it because I that's what I went through in India. If I go back to India, I had the same way. I was treated like a child when I was in my ninth grade. I think men, after many years, when I went recently to India, there was a man in a bicycle.
And my friend and I were just walking in Punducherry, which was one of the streets. It's a, it's a great city, highly you know, well-advanced city. And he called me you know, in a very derogatory word in India in Tamil. And I thought to myself, he would have to 30, 40 years, nothing has changed. Yeah.
What can, how can we change it? The person is calling me the same thing. And while I was a child, they did the same thing and they're doing the same thing and they're going to keep doing to the younger generation. So, I started thinking about how do we educate the parents so that they won't kick the children from their homes.
So that's another part of me, you know, which is going on, but I was struggling deep inside and I was traveling to all these places. But at the same time, there was some discrimination in certain States, like North Carolina, when I go to the bathrooms and people will be like, so I had a little bit of a passing privilege because I, you know, I sometimes.
I just make sure that I present myself nicely, but there are times when I did not pass as a goal. And I would be so scared because I would be standing in a line with the women to get into the restroom and there'll be children looking at me, you know, like, who are you? And I'd be so scared and want them to say, mom, that's a man or something so scared.
I'm like, I don't want anything things speeding. Okay. And it was hard. I mean, there were lots of times it's been very hard and in Arizona faced a man who yelled at me saying, you know, go back to your country. Not because it was trans it's because I was an Indian person. I was not an American because he thought I was from Iraq.
He thought I was maybe from Iran or some Iranian woman or something, you know, you said. Go back to your country, go back to Iraq.
I cannot imagine traveling to that many different parts of the United States as someone who moved here, because I am afraid to travel to some areas. And I feel like at least I have a vibe for places where I've heard stories and places, I might want to avoid places where I shouldn't travel in the evening. So, I've just so glad nothing happened to you because you see that these people, their numbers are higher than I realized, even I knew they were everywhere, but I just didn't know. I mean, this previous administration really opened my eyes about the numbers.
Yeah. That's, that's basically what made me an activist. I would say. So, when I started coming out and that's when I felt like in 2013, I came out in my community in California. That's when I felt like this is California, and I see a lot of hate in my own community because they called me a man in a dress who needs medical help.
The Christian community called me a man in a dress who needs medical help because I told my story in that church, the first time I told Celia's coming out story in a church, and I said it the way it was so wonderful. I told him that I'm struggling, and I did not want this, but this is how God made me.
And I'm just going to honor what God made me. And I'm going to try to live my life the way God made me. And I cannot change it. And it was so wonderful. And the backlash I faced from the, the news, our local newspaper was so horrific.
Why would they cover it in the news?
They asked me if I w if they could come and take my story, you know,
Wow, and then covered it like that?!
It was a big piece, almost like a half a page, a huge page. And it was in the local newspaper. And they call in a senior is coming out and blah, blah, blah. You know, lots of the, my entire story came out there. And then a lot of people wrote to the editors and a letter to the editors.
And they said, this is, this is, this person is not trans, you know, this person is just making it up. These are, these kinds of people are, they need medical help. They are not really trans. And even if you are trans, they don't like here. You know, they don't like it no matter what, if you belong to the LGBTQ spectrum of spectrum you are, and this is in Simi Valley where Reagan was buried here, Nancy Reagan and Reagan. And in this place, when I, when I was coming out this is the kind of backlash I faced. So, I went, I took the newspaper and my, my friend and the friends and the church was saying, you know, don't worry, Celia things will change. Don't worry about it. And I was so angry, and I went back to my car and said, I can't be this one honorable, you know, what am I going to do?
I'm just going to go and stand in the streets and say, just beat me if you want to beat me up, you know, I'm okay with it. I was so angry, and I was, I was just frustrated because I didn't know what else to do. I can't change myself. And this is who I am. And I was sitting in my car and it was just, my tears were rolling my eyes.
And then I thought to myself, I can either keep, skip crying like this or do something I think about it. And that's when I thought, Hmm, let me do something. I saw a newspaper clip. There was not a newspaper, I would say. It's in Facebook, there was a note saying, you know, there was a gun violence or gun control.
A protest that's happening in my community. And I said, let me go there. So, I went to Celia and I stood there. I stood for immigration rights as took for gun rights. I stood for gun control, and then I stood for healthcare issues. I stood for all kinds of issues. And so, I actually came out while I was fighting for trans rights.
I became a human rights activist. So HRC (Human Rights Campaign) , they gave me an award in 2019. Celia's you know, service to the community and where I lived in Ventura County. It's because what happened is, I think all of them have an activism in our, in our body, you know, life, you know, we are activists, there's not, we just need some, a little bit of spark to activate that activism, which we don't even know.
And it, it could happen anytime in our lives. And this was a time in 2013, set ignited you know, that kind of created that ignition. And I started. I put that on. I couldn't go back.
What did you understand what happened when you went through that in the church and you were so vulnerable and you shared your truth, what clicked that made you realize you want to do something that you want to actively change the world around you?
I first saw two kinds of problems. One is the community by itself. You know, cisgender community in, in my community were not able to understand me. They said, you know, you're trans and you're going to help simple period. And then the transgender community were looking at me and saying, Celia, you need to transition.
You need to completely transition. And I said, I don't want to transition. This was before Caitlyn Jenner came out, you know, this was like much before that. And I said, no, I don't want to transition. And they said, Daniel Fick, you're just a cross dresser. I said, no, I'm not across dressed. So, for me, I'm, I'm not, I'm having a gender problem.
I'm not having a dressing issue. I have enough time to address. I don't have a problem dressing up. It's my gender issue. It's something which is internal. It is, it's just showing up externally. And that's what I was trying to help them understand. They would never get it. And I was facing a backlash with both the trans community and the cisgender community.
And I started thinking to myself as to where do I go if I want to be Celia. If I go to the bars, people treat me like a prostitute. They asked me for a blowjob. If I go to the trans groups, they keep talking about HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy ) and they keep telling me that I need to transition. I need to leave my wife and my family and be my authentic self.
And when I go to a church, I cannot even go to the church because I feel like I'll be kicked out of the church. Are they going to look at me in a, in the most evil way that I will probably be burned like Solomon government or whatever. And then the other side was the, the, the, the cisgender community that was ignoring you, you know, just completely ignoring you.
And here I was a business professional, well reputed in my company, in my community as Daniel. But when I was celiac the whole world, the ecosystem just changed around me. It was like full of hate when, and when it was Daniel, nothing, I didn't see any of this. I had a great life. I was, you know, I was flying my I'm in a great life.
I mean, I would say my daughter lived, you know, she's very happy. My, my wife was very happy and I, I couldn't live that way. And I was, I knew that that's something that I need to do at the time. I, the first thing that hit me. The first ready. One thing that hit me was I could get killed because of who I am.
And until then I never thought about it. I just thought discrimination is fine. People yell at me. I can ignore these people. I went for the transgender day of remembrance in 2011 in West Hollywood, I saw the pictures of trans people who are tied and dragged, and they were, those flush came off and, you know, they were killed in a horrific way.
They were burned alive. And I was looking at these pictures and I was thinking, oh my God, this is America. And this is happening to people of color. Hello, I'm a Brown person. Of course, a lot happened more than 85% of them are in the black community, but there were things happening to people like me as well. And I said, you know, what, what do I do?
How can I save a trans person's life? What do I do to say one person this year? I want to see the numbers go down. At the time. It was probably 29. Trans women were killed in the US trans people, not just trans women, but other folks too. And then I started doing some activism. I said, you know, what do I do?
Where do I educate? Where do I start? And there was a call in the police station. They said, we just want to hear transgender folks voice, would you like to come? So, I went to LAPD, I went there. This was way back in 2013 or 2014. I went to LAPD and I said Hey, I'm a gender, non-binary person. If yours, if you, if you stop me, my idea is going to say, Daniel, it's not going to CC me.
I'm going to look so different. And the, and I was trying to help them understand that there are people like me who are so scared to they're nervous. You know, when you get caught and it's not because we've done anything wrong, but I'd be more educating the police. At the time I went to Hollywood police station LAPD, I tried going to Simi Valley police station.
I called the Sheriff's office and they didn't want to take the call because they were like, you're not going to listen to you. So Oxnard, I went through my friends and we made some changes that my friend, they all said police department went to the schools. Spoken schools the school board and, well, how do we change things, change the bullying and issues happening in school board.
I went to the colleges that were young people. And I started talking about my life and about transgender community. I went to the psychiatric community and since I'm in healthcare and life sciences, I understood about some of these the, the policy changes and how certain diagnosis codes were rejected by the insurance companies, because I worked with insurance companies.
And so I started looking at it and I said, you know, how do we change these things and make it more, how do we educate my doctor? I know my doctor didn't notice gender dysphoria. I had to educate him. So I started educating folks and I started thinking, okay, if they don't know, they need to know. So I'm going to educate them.
So I started doing it and I started finding organizations and networks that was already doing work in that space, but they didn't have a trans representation, like healthcare. I've been for a health care conference where I was the only trans person out of 200 people. And I just put my hand and said, I have a question.
What do you do for the trans community? And everybody looking around me and they're taking picture because they have never seen a trans person before in my community. And I was like, okay, So here we go, this is how it's going to be. So I said, I know what you want to take a picture, go for it. I held all those banners and I post for the pictures.
They give it to Kamala Harris. In 2015, they pick a picture of me and they will give it to her saying that, you know, we are all fighting. I went to the democratic club, I went to the league of women voters. I went to the County clerk's office and I told them that, how do you, how as a person of gender, non binary person can vote today, you know, what are the systems that are there?
Because my ID will not match on you. You can't tell me, you can, you know, you cannot work. So I did a lot, whatever I could put my hands on, I started doing it and I went to my own company and I started educating them, my clients and I was working at the time and I could not take them. The tech industry was very bad in terms of diversity.
Let me put it even today. We have a problem. So I was working in the tech industry and I didn't know how to come out. So after 20 years of working for this company, I decided to come out I, I gave up papers and they didn't want to take my resignation at all. So they gave me salary for six months without even any work.
This was in 2015. So working and I was trying to do a lot of things. And then I quit and joined another company. And then I couldn't join another company. And finally I decided, you know what, I need to do something on my own and I have to, I want to be Celia. So I tried looking for a job at Celia and nobody gave me a job.
I had, my resume was so good as a professional who understands business, right? It, but the unfortunately I would say the way people look at diversity is I will hire you Celia, but I have a job for you in the corner. You know, go sit there. Because I just want to hire and that's how it is.
And I said, no, I'm, I'm a senior director in a company. I was three levels below the CEO. Really give me the same job if I'm Celia. And they said, sorry, our board is full of white people. You know, we don't think you can fit in there. Like, okay, how can we change it? So I, I saw the problem and I didn't yell at all these people because I'm not wasting my energy on these people.
And I said, okay, how do I change your company? What do I need to do to change your company? And they said, keep on telling your stories. You keep on telling what you're doing. And that's what I'm started doing, started talking about my experiences, because some of them are horrific experiences, right? From the time I would, I got.
I mean, I got abused in the bars. My family didn't understand. My wife was like, don't dress applies a goal. You're a man. You are a businessman. You're so successful. I was going through all that. And then my daughter was growing up and 15, when she was 15 years old, she found out her dad was wearing a sari it was so intense at the time.
And I didn't know how to handle it. And on top of it, I had a lot of work-related stress. And then I had personal stress with all those going on. So wherever I went, I did not know what to do. I was just, you know, break collapsing inside out. I kept telling my wife that sweetheart, I really have a problem.
But now I knew exactly what to tell her. I told her sweetheart, I have gender dysphoria. And she said, what is that? I said, I got a one out of 200 people like me who are born in agenda, but they prefer to be in another gender. People call it transgender, because for lack of better word, it's like moving from one gender to the other.
According to the medical terminology, I have gender dysphoria and this is what I'm going through. So my wife accepted me now after 17 years. And you know, we are married for 23 years. This is going to be 24th year. My daughter to whom I came out when she was 15 years old, she accepted me in 25 minutes.
My wife took 17 years. So I had this time when companies, when spouses, when parents don't get it, it's okay, but we have to be consistent. And that's what I did. I did a lot of grace and a lot of patience. And I learned to be patient with people and because I'm a very impatient person too, but I learned patience when I was, when I became Celia.
So Celia is very natural to me. And see I changed my, my life and in a lot of ways cause I was getting to a point where I was just like, I didn't know how to handle myself. And no, my daughter's 21 years old and she's the most supportive person of her dad, you know? I told my wife, I'm always going to be a husband.
You know, I, I don't know these gender norms, how it's going to work with people. I'm not going to, I'm going to stop explaining to people about our relationship, but I will always be a husband because you are a mom and I'm going to be the dad. And I will always be that my daughter calls me down.
That rejection that you face from the trans community, not really rejection, but that judgment that you're not trans enough as you moved forward and saw the terminology and that there lots of non-binary people. Do you feel now that you're more gender fluid and so you feel comfortable sometimes as Daniel or really you just don't go out as Daniel?
No, I, I do. I do I'm Daniel at times because I don't hate my both gender.
There are people in the spectrum who are different, you know, they sometimes identify as gender neutral where they don't want to be male or female. They want to be identified as gender, gender, non binary. I'm kind of there because I don't identify completely as Daniel or I don't, you know, but I mostly lean towards Celia a lot because.
That was a shame that I was hiding for many years. And so when I'm Celia, I'm really happy, you know, it's like, so 80% of my life I'm Celia. And there is some percentage of my life that I'm Daniel, you know, I, I still plays the guitar with my wife. I go for hiking and I'm Daniel for her at the time.
There are times when you know, I think I have learned to create a balance in my life because I didn't hate my male gender. It was easy for me to kind of incorporate that within my own family. So there are times when I'll be talking to my wife, like Celia as a third person and just tell her, Hey, I need to wash my clothes in a Celia's clots.
Okay. Celia has a conference call and she needs to be out. So my wife will understand. So it's, it's, it's kinda got into our routine now that It's so simple, you know, sometimes gender is such a fluid thing. It's, it's, it's a spectrum. And I just love to express. And so today I, I sometimes do as Celia, sometimes as gender, non binary, and sometimes as Daniel also.
So I can explore the entire spectrum. Sometimes I feel like I want to be gender non binary. I just wear something different and I look very gender neutral. People will know, even then they will call me Matt. They'll be like, hello, ma'am and I'll probably have a little bit of stumbles and they'll still call me.
Ma'am I'll be thinking, okay. I don't, I don't want to explain to them that I should be called as they them, but that's okay.
You've been through so much to find exactly your own voice to find exactly how you want to be living and how you want to present your gender with almost no one modeling, well, no one actually modeling this for you. You just followed your internal compass. Now that you're where you are do you ever feel like when you were in church and you identified that this is exactly who God wanted you to be, does it ever resonate with you that back in the day, these third gender or non-binary people were religious leaders ? Does it feel like it's part of your calling to be someone who helps people understand how to make the world better and how to be better people? Does it seem like maybe that's part of your heritage as a non-binary person?
Absolutely. I think I don't remember the time I used to sit on the beach and Ask God, the question, why did he make me like this?
Why can't you, why, what kind of your normal boy, you know, why did you make me this way? And the question that I was asking right from the childhood, I never got an answer and I kept on asking this question for many years, I got mattered and I had a child. And even then I remember I went to Vegas and I was, I had a business trip and I, I walked a long skirt and I was driving in Vegas.
I came back to my hotel and I started crying because I was like, God, why did he make me make this? The answer that I got at the time was this is the way you're made. You know, you cannot change the way you are. And I looked at Psalms and it said, very clearly, I've known you.
In your mother's womb, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I was thinking, if you made me like this, then you have to take care of me because I don't know how to handle my life. And you know, Susan here was beautifully and even the Bible is full of characters. There were a lot of people who are actually intersects there were a lot of units and Bible, and these are characters who don't have agenda at all because when you castrate someone and they still call them here in Bible when Philip was called to attend to their trip in eunuch, in acts chapter, they mentioned as he, and I was thinking, you know, those are.
They actually probably gender non binary Bible is full of characters or gender non binary. And they never talked about it because it's been a part of the culture in every culture it's been there. It's always there in every culture around the world, native American have fight genders and you know, they're in India, they have three genders.
Now they're considering as one. And I, I thought to myself as to why do we create such an animosity without understanding? It's just that people know, I don't think the religious leaders are idiots. They know, they know they just avoid going to that space because they know that they don't have enough knowledge to be able to accept that they don't want that knowledge, which is bigotry.
And, and it's like, I don't want to know about it. I think it will go to hell and that's about it. And they just brush it off. But they're brushing off a lot of people who are actually looking for love, who are looking for acceptance, we're looking for truth, and those are, and a lot of people are dying. So in my, in my being, I thought if I can say one trans person from getting from committing suicide or getting murdered, and then I have done my job.
And if I can show one trans person about the love of God and that's what is important, I don't have to preach to anybody. And so I started doing what I was, you know, what I, what I what it was meant to do. And I felt, I told my wife that sweetheart, this is my calling. I didn't know what I was planning to do.
You know, I, I took Sunday school. I do wash it also. I do. I'm a worship leader in my church. I, I, I lead worship. I lead the youth fellowship in the church. But the funny part is people don't when I just came out as Daniel, it was like, Oh, you're out of the church. You know, you're, you're going out somewhere.
And even if you bring those conversations saying that God loves everybody. Even if you are black, white, or I'm just thinking that this is , but anybody, any color, any sexual orientation or gender identity, it doesn't matter. God loves them because that's what it is. And that's the, what church leaders have to listen to.
But unfortunately they made it very political. They took Bible and made it political, like the slavery, they made it all political. They made it systemically a discriminate to retain and they don't want to go there. And that's exactly what they're doing with the LGBTQ community today. And I see that happening again.
The civil rights issues are happening again and again, and I was watching the one night in Miami, the four folks were talking about it, you know, like Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and the two other folks. I was listening to that. I was listening to all these dialogues and I started learning a lot. And I was thinking to myself, and every time I'll tell people, when you have a bathroom issue, when you want to make a change in your company, start from the bathroom, go and watch hidden figures.
That's happening again. It's not happening to the black woman, but it's happening to transform it transmit. Yeah. And we are asked to go out somewhere and you know, or you're not even allowed into the restaurant because you're different and they think you're going to steal somebody or scare somebody. You know, it's so that's how they made it everything political.
So there is a lot of education that needs to happen. And to me, I look at the community. I look at these churches because sometimes these people are governing this loss, especially in the previous administration. A lot of them are governed by Mike Pence and the church community, the evangelical community were influencing the government.
And to me, that was a big I would say it's a big ticking time bomb that, and then I saw the corporate community just reacting to it. They just react to everything. You know, they're not even proactive, right? I've seen big corporations, like $27 billion companies winning getting these numbers and corporate index equality index.
But are they really retaining their employees who are different, you know, a black community or trans community, Asian community, veteran community. How many people have you hired? How many people have you retained. Those numbers are not available. They just hire you trail it. I really have noticed lately, a lot of people who are claiming their interest in diversity, equity and inclusion, when it's very performative and it's more like a personal improvement project for their white employees.
It's not about making the environment safe and welcoming for everyone. It's still centered on the white employees and their experience. And yeah, I don't think the retention rates are really there for the people of color and the queer folks. Yeah, and I, that that would change. But to me, I sometimes, may not even my, when I was talking to my wife last week, I was telling her I'm so frustrated with all these policies and, you know, they always keep on hounding the trans people.
And she said just keep doing what you're doing, because you may not even see during your lifetime, but that's what the change will come, but we have to keep doing what we do. I'm so glad I have a beautiful family where my wife is. Finally I understood what I was going through, but unfortunately not many trans people have the privilege of such understanding family and community.
I know as we speak one or two of my friends are going through a divorce. And it's, it's heartbreaking because it's just the fact that they don't understand. They can't, they can't. And it's not that, Hey, I should have known when we got married. No, it's not that because. I was not wanting to do this at all.
When I got mad, I thought it's going to go away. And a lot of people like me when I came to this country, when I was a child, I thought that I was the only person, but now I found that an entire community. And in that world, there are people like me from Thailand, from Arabia, even, even in Saudi Arabia or everywhere in Europe and Australia, Netherlands Argentina, you just name it.
There are people who are different and everyone is going through the same issue. So I, just, to me, that is more important as to how do we change it, but we have to keep working on it. And community change needs to happen. Change in the companies need to happen. And the diversity has to happen at the boardroom to the bathroom.
And only then we will know that the companies are truly Making a change. And I, I remember questioning HRC. I, one of my clients, they had a hundred percent corporate equality index. And I happened to be in the client group and I was asking so many LGBTQ folks, do you have, they said, Oh, we have like a 200 office.
I said, how many trans do you have? They said, Oh, we actually have one trans woman, but she's in a stealth mode. And I said, really, and your corporate equality index is a hundred percent. And I said, see, I'm still changing. And it's you know, I said, y'all changing, but not fast enough because if you've got a C I score a hundred percent, you're just looking at these numbers to make your recruiting much better.
It's a branding issue for you. You know, you're just branding your company. You're not really making a change. They didn't want to hear that from me. And I told them very clearly, look. I can help you change. So that's one of the things that I did was I joined our trans skin work. As in the executive board, they invited me to be a part of the executive board.
And when I joined Trans Can Work executive board, we also changed the diverse we brought in diversity, even that's good work. Oh, wonderful. Within the executive board. So which is actually interesting. And we also help in changing the companies. Now we talked to the companies and tell them that let's truly change your company.
You know, let's not do it for branding. Let's truly change. So it's just happening Dalia. But it's gonna take a while and it's going to take awhile, but I hope these changes come in soon because it's been 200 years since we had the civil rights issues for the black community.
Right, and you see how that’s going.
I know
It could be faster.
From the Stonewall riots, which is in 69 to now. I, you know, I, nothing has changed to me yeah. That are people who are fighting, but there's no unity within the trans community. There's no unity within the LGBTQ community. So we all have to stand up together and build that allyship.
So that's what I keep telling them that don't say that the gay man or a lesbian woman doesn't understand your problem, teach them, help them understand your issues. And once we do that, we need to build this allyship as the LGBTQ community. So that's what I did in my community. I'm the Weiss, I'm the vice president of South Stonewall Democrats.
And they wanted me to be the vice president and the president. And I said, no, I want someone else to take that role. And so we kind of, you know, I'm working with again, bill has been community and the bisexual and pansexual community, intersex community, you know what? Let's just all come to the table, no matter who we are, it's important for us to form that unity.
And then we have cisgender people and let's also look at the intersectionality within our own selves, because I don't want to be just known as a trans person. You know, I have a child, I'm a parent, I'm a, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a musician, I'm a hiker, I'm a blogger, I'm a photographer. There's a lot of things that I want to be known as I don't want to be just known as Celia the trends.
No, I don't want to go down that way right now. Of course it is one of my identities, but not the most important identity. And that's what is important, you know, for us to change in the companies.
This helps so much. The point that your wife made that you stick with it because we don't know how much what we're doing right now is going to create change for the people come after us.
So just thank you so much for all of the work that you're doing. Where can people find you online?
So I'm on LinkedIn Celia Sandhya Daniels, and I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. It's Celia Sandhya is an Indian word it's more like the dusk or dawn or something. It's a Sanskrit name and I really love that word.
And I said, I need to keep it. If you just Google Celia Daniels, you will just find me because I, my friend recently told me I just Googled any other, like you're all over the place. And I said, hope it's in a good way.
That's wonderful. Oh, this has been just beautiful.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
Thank you so much for having me. And I really want to join hands with you and thank you for this platform we are in this together. You know, it's not about just Celia, it's all about us and you know, all the issues we are going through.
So, thank you so much. And I really appreciate this time and the effort you have taken to amplify this platform.
Surviving Gender Dysphoria with Celia Sandhya Daniels | Episode 19