I am Criss Christoff Smith. I grew up on a farm in Jamaica. 

When I was about six years old, I was on my grandmother’s farm playing with my older brother. My grandmother must have seen something in me that no one else did because normally, children, especially girl children, would have to be in the house and doing all the domestic chores, but she allowed me to be out in the grounds of the farm running around and… with my brother, my older brother and his friends.

My brother usually makes some go-karts. After we built the cart, so now it was time to put the cart on the main road and roll it down the hill, and we would all jump on. And it was so exciting. So we’re rolling, rolling, rolling. And all excited and, and we all jumped off and so everyone took their shirt off. So I took my shirt off… my brother was like, “No, no, no! You can’t take your shirt off.” 

And I’m like, “Why?” 

He’s like, “You are a girl child! I almost died. That broke my heart. I cried for two days.

 

That broke my heart. I cried for two days.

After I migrated to the United States, I lived in Brooklyn, New York with my mother, and my mother was very, very strict with us. Living in Jamaica, I was so free. I had so much freedom on my grandmother’s farm. And living in Brooklyn was horrible, was so strict and restricted, and I had to wear dresses, which I hated. 

Going to high school in Brooklyn, my guidance counselor, because I had very good grades, she filled out all the applications for me and said all I had to do was just take this app home and get my mother’s signature. Had a full scholarship to Skidmore College, so I was very happy about that. 

I find this new freedom of being more myself. And I met a lot of lesbians and I became friends with them and that’s when I started exploring being a lesbian. And the first time I was with a woman was at Skidmore and I was like, Oh, this is awesome. 

So I started living as a lesbian throughout my college years. And then after I graduated from Skidmore, I started working on Wall Street. I started being very successful. Bought homes in Jersey. And I started living my life as a lesbian, having different girlfriends, beautiful homes, all the trappings. 

At the same time, never completely felt myself because at the time, I was never comfortable with my body, especially being on the beaches. I would take these fabulous Caribbean vacations. We would go on beaches, but I did not wear a two piece or a woman’s bathing suit. I would wear shorts and a t-shirt. 

Years later, I had a car accident and I started having some anxiety issues as far as driving. So I started doing some meditation and went to see a therapist and so forth. I started looking more internally, meditating and… and so forth. And then I started l looking around and thought that my life was very superficial. So I started downsizing. I decided to sell my home. I even gave my sisters a lot of my furniture. This house was so big that I actually had three couches. I still did not feel completely fulfilled, but I knew that I had to do more internal healing. 

Years later, I met someone who I thought that I would spend the rest of my life with. So we got married. As we were going through some difficulties, we decided to speak to my very good friend who’s also my spiritual writer – advisor and a pastor. So in the conversation with him, he brought up the fact he was like, “Chris, you know what? I feel that you’re not completely being yourself. Have you thought about transitioning?” 

It was like an epiphany. I was like, “Oh my God. You know what? I never really thought about it.” But after hearing those words from him, I was like, you, You know what? This is something that I need to explore. 

I started researching it. I went to Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, started the hormone therapy, and it was fantastic. Spoke to everyone there.  I went full throttle. I went 110% in. About a year later, I had top surgery, and I was so elated. My whole life just opened up to me. 

My marriage, of course, did not survive this transition, because my wife did not wanna be married to a man. But the happiness that I have found surpassed anything else that I could ever feel. We have divorced since then, but I am so much happier living the life as myself.

There was a certain freedom in it. The same freedom that I felt when I first took my shirt off on that farm with my older brother. That freedom filled my whole body and for the first time, I could look at myself in the mirror and felt real self-love. 

I started my transition over eight years ago, but today I am so… I am living a life that I never thought possible. The extent of my contentment and happiness is far beyond anything that I can imagine. I am really living authentically as myself and, and so happy, so happy, and because of that, the universe has sent me such peace, such contentment, that I would only wish that for everyone.