It’s been a little over a year since my star-crossed journey to Vancouver, and Pittsburgh has been a little less home-like than I had hoped it would be. Each day that I wake up here, I’m reminded of the feeling of that wooden bench in the train station, waiting for daybreak and the terror of re-entry into the US. The CBP agent examining my passport could have taken me off the train, citing the “F” marker I had been so proud of seeing next to “Gender”. But he didn’t. And so I went back to a home that, in truth, no longer existed.

But perhaps the most striking irony of the whole situation is that it was completely unnecessary. As it turns out, this US passport isn’t the only one to which I am entitled. I should have been permitted entry into Canada. Not because I was in danger– which I was and am– but because I was and am a Canadian citizen. I just couldn’t prove it yet.

Bjorkquist, C-3, and a ticking clock

In 2023, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that regulations limiting Canadian citizenship to first-generation children of expatriates “with a significant connection to Canada” was not in keeping with the Constitution, and rolled back the law effective six months from then. This is called the Bjorkquist Decision, and it allows anyone born to Canadian parents to be considered a Canadian citizen regardless of where they were born or if they ever set foot in a province or territory. The decision was murkily implemented until the end of 2025, when Bill C-3 received royal assent and the decision was codified into law. Kinda.

Look, I get that immigration is a thorny issue, especially to a nation as culturally precarious as Canada. When the international reputation of the country is “almost America”, you cling onto whatever scrap of identity you can grasp. But there is a line between heritage and xenophobia, and the pre-Bjorkquist situation was way past it. I’d be saying it even if C-3 didn’t give me the lifeline it does. And let’s be completely honest: Canadian culture is a lot less vulnerable than it’s portrayed.

C-3 does restore citizenship to people who lost the opportunity through no fault of their own. And, at the same time, it reduces the risk to Canada of having to support indefinitely a right of repatriation that doesn’t reflect most nations’ concept of citizenship by descent nowadays. While I have the ability to claim citizenship, if I were to have children (and that would be its own miracle) they would only be able to claim citizenship by descent if I had spent three consecutive years in Canada. This part of the rule is for anyone born after 15 December 2025, and I think that’s reasonable.

The problem is, ironically, that the difficulty I encounter now isn’t getting into Canada– it’s getting out of the United States. See, in late February, a Kansas law went into effect that stripped the driver’s licenses and other documents from almost 2,000 transgender people, literally overnight. People affected received letters notifying them of the change that would go into effect the very next day. It even noted that the law allowed for no grace period or transition period. Anyone who didn’t get the letter on time risked arrest for driving without a license. And it wasn’t just trans people who had changed their gender markers that got caught up in it; reports came in that cisgender people or trans folks who explicitly had not changed the marker were also getting their IDs revoked.

I don’t live in Kansas. But enforcement of no-marker-change rules have been handed down by the head of the Executive Branch. Interpretation of those rules is still fluid. And in order to leave the US, I would still have to go through passport control. So, again, the fear is that the wrong agent at the wrong place at the wrong time can skunk my exit. With every day that passes– with each moment that normalizes the procedures of Kavanaugh stops, of ICE “surges”, of searches of social media for “anti-American sentiment”– the chances of that wrong agent checking my passport increase disproportionately.

New Voyage, New Year

So that brings me back to the present moment, and the effort to leave sooner rather than later. My attempt to get out after the 2024 elections relied on a crowdfunding campaign that was successful beyond my imagination, even though the actual escape collapsed suddenly. I had little to no backup plan, which obviously made the year since then a bit more difficult than I anticipated. I wouldn’t even be able to get my tools and belongings back until late in summer.

I’m not doing the crowdfunding route this time. For one, I can’t bear the thought of having to ask again after failing once before. And for another, this time there can be no turning back. I won’t be attempting the trip again until and unless I have the citizenship proof. If it means I have to be homeless (again) for a little while, then so be it.

Pretty much the entirety of my spare time over the last six weeks has been consumed with getting the paperwork together. As I type this, I have a plan in place to get the final three documents that I need to fully prove the lineage. I’ve been checking over my process with others who have been through the application process, and most of them agree that I have established a relatively strong case. And, in the long run, I am aware that I’m going to have to sell off a LOT of what I have in order to fund the trip. Some things are beyond sale; I can’t get rid of things like my toolkits or my computers, as they are literally how I can support myself. But other things are going to have to go, regardless of the effort I’ve put into them or the comfort they could bring me.

Does it hurt? Yes. It will be the fourth time that I will be forced to sacrifice a huge majority of what I have gathered. I’ve taken steps to reduce the sting, and I’m doing what I can to ensure that what I can keep is not valuable enough to regret holding on to. It’s going to suck. But if it means that I have a chance to put this terror behind me once and for all, then I can endure it one final time.

I’ve mentioned this before, either on one of the predecessor blogs or on my old short-form social media site (which shall not be named, though please do follow me on Bluesky). But one of the things I like to do when circumstances permit is to be up to watch the first sunrise of the year. I started doing it when I first moved to Pittsburgh, almost twenty years ago. Here, I would look east, waiting as the darkness faded from midnight blue to a gentle pink and orange dawn. I would contemplate the possibilities of the year ahead, and when the day was fully here, only then would I turn on the technology and begin it properly.

I’m still not sure how I am going to get to British Columbia. It largely depends on how much I’m able to earn from selling what I have. I would like to take the train again– it was a pleasant trip and I probably had the best nights of sleep I’ve had in the last ten years while on the road– but that might be impractical depending on a few other factors, none of which I want to get into right now. But my goal is indeed either Vancouver or Victoria; or even one of the smaller cities nearby like Nanaimo or Coquitlam. I want to wake up on New Year’s Day and sit on a beach facing the Strait of Georgia or the Salish Sea, gazing out onto the ocean as the sun rises behind me.

But wherever it happens, I want to wake up from this nightmare of this present moment. I want the nightmares that have beset me since the first election to be nothing but memories.

I want– I need– to be free.