SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When one watches musician Grey Gritt get up to sing in front of a crowd it is clear that she is a natural performer.

Singer Grey Gritt poses with her partner Kayla Cooper. Gritt suffers from a condition known as gender dysphoria, a medical condition where people feel disconnected from the gender assigned to them at birth. She will be undergoing surgery to have her breasts removed in Toronto next week. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

But the confidence Gritt exudes with a guitar in her hands and her lips pressed against a microphone masks the fact that for the past few years she has felt anything but natural in her own skin.

The discomfort Gritt has been experiencing is caused by the fact that she suffers from gender dysphoria – a medical condition where a person feels diconnected from the gender they were assigned with at birth.

In Gritt's case, she was born female but doesn't identify exclusively with that sex. She explained that if gender can be represented as a spectrum with masculinity on one end and femininity on the other, she would place herself somewhere in the middle, although she tends to lean towards the masculine side.

That is why next week she will be flying to Toronto to undergo a bliateral mastectomy, more commonly referred to as top surgery, to have her breasts removed.

“Already, in my brain – in the vision of myself – my chest isn't there,” said Gritt.

Gritt explained that her breasts provide both a mental and physical barrier to living a fullfilling life.

“The way that I can best explain it is imagine having a set of body parts that feel like they don't belong to you,” she said.

Gritt's long-time girlfriend, Kayla Cooper, said she cannot fathom how difficult it must be for her partner.

“I can't imagine feeling that unhappy with who I am,” she said.

Cooper said people who do not understand the kinds of struggles transgendered people go through should try and be as empathetic as possible.

“If you're overweight you can go to a gym and make yourself feel better by losing weight, but there is no relatively quick solution to something like this,” she said.

Although some people might view the surgery as a matter of choice, Gritt insists it was one she had to make.

“I could choose to continue living the way that I am but unfortunately that just doesn't seem like a good option for me,” she said.

“It causes a lot of stress and discomfort and a whole range of emotions that are unpleasant.”

Although the discomfort Gritt refers to is caused by a physical condition, the importance of having the operation is above all, a matter of mental health, she said.

Gritt explained that when she first approached her doctor to inquire about getting the procedure done, she was referred to a psychiatrist. After being diagnosed with depression and anxiety as a result of her dysphoria, the operation was deemed to be medically necessary. After recieving a letter of recommendation from her psychiatrist, the territorial government recently agreed to pay for the cost of the surgery, including the cost of travel to Toronto.

The news came as a relief to Gritt, who was preparing to pay for the surgery herself after not having any luck convincing the GNWT to foot the bill the last two years. According to Gritt, one of the reasons for the delay was a misunderstanding over the wording of her psychiatrist’s original letter to the Department of Health and Social Services. The fact the government doesn't explicitly cover surgeries related to gender dysphoria was also a factor in having the process taking longer than hoped.

While Gritt would prefer for the gender reassignment surgery to be automatically covered by territorial legislation, she is relieved that the government will make exceptions on a case by case basis.

“Luckily there is that exception that can happen,” she said.

The beginning of a transformation

For Gritt, the surgery is just one part of her journey to becoming comfortable with her identity. She said she began dressing in men's clothes with increasing frequency in her early 20s, in order to reflect how she felt.

Gritt knows that having surgery will not be the answer to all her problems. She said she has done a lot of reading and research about people who have had top surgery, and the one thing they all warn is that “you can't expect it to be a fix all.”

“It's OK if I don't feel 100 per cent after surgery,” she said.

Undergoing the surgery also raise new questions such as whether she will start using masculine pronouns to identify herself, and whether or not she will decide to have further surgery.

Although Gritt has thought about those questions she does not have answers to them at the moment.

Even if she did, she downplayed the importance of answering them in public.

“You could fall in love with someone anywhere and not know what their genitalia is, and to make that the focus I think is not necessary,” she said.

She encouraged anyone wary about asking inappropriate questions about transgendered people to do some research.

“It's so easy to just take out your phone and Google something and there are lots of guides online on how to respect trans-folks ... It would save a lot of embarassment for all parties if you just researched it on your own, and used that information to ask better questions or not ask questions,” she said.

Regardless of what happens next, Gritt is fortunate to have the support of her friends and family, including an older cousin who has already made a transition similar to Gritt's.

“It made the conversation with my family members easier, because its something they already saw from afar,” she said.

For Cooper, accepting Gritt's decision is just a matter of being open with her partner.

“People ask me if I'm OK with it, and obviously I am because I love Grey,” said Cooper. “I just want to be suportive and do what I can.”