Woman breaks her silence after years of living as a man

NEAR KELLIHER, Sask – Surrounded by loving family and friends, Laura Budd has never been happier in her life, though her road to bliss was rocky for years.

Born as Brice Budd on a farm in central Saskatchewan, she knew she was different, but couldn’t exactly pinpoint how.

“I was assigned male at birth and I tried to live up to those expectations. They were put on me 50 years ago when I was born, but it never fit,” she said.

Laura had four sisters, and envied their hair, their nails and their clothes.

“I didn’t feel like a little boy,” she said.

For decades she buried her true self, fearing how people would react.

“There was nobody, 40 years ago, when I was 10, that was different in our community. It was a very European community. I didn’t see anyone that was outside of the box,” she said. “No one knew. Not my parents, not my siblings, not my friends. I didn’t share it with anyone in the world.”

But keeping her secret was wreaking havoc on her mental health.

“I watched men around me and I over masculinized my thoughts, my actions, my movements. You try to believe that’s who you are. You try to let go of the thoughts in your head and the way you actually feel,” she said. “It kinda turns your insides into hamburger. It just chops you up inside. I was to the point where I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

At age 45, the torture of keeping quiet and suppressing her emotions became too much. The dam broke and it all came flooding out.

“When you have a secret, it just keeps working on you. Every day it gets harder and harder to keep it. I just hit the wall. I felt like I was living a lie and I needed those around me to know who I really was,” she said. “I was scared that I was going to lose everything: my family, my wife, my children, all of my siblings. I thought that they would all just say goodbye.”

First, she told her unsuspecting wife of over two decades. Pat Budd was stunned.

“I didn’t know anything. And I beat myself up about it for a long time. I hated myself because I was one of those wives, that lived with a man for 20 years and never knew him.”

She cried day in and day out on her hour long drive to and from work in Yorkton.

There were days she couldn’t even look at Laura and their marriage bond started to erode.

“You act like you have the weight of the world lifted off your shoulders. But what you don’t realize, is you have placed it squarely on me. I am now carrying this burden, this secret,” she said through tears.

For a two-year span, the couple barely spoke, working around one another in the home they shared with their two sons.

One day, the reality of the situation struck Pat.

“It wasn’t really truly until I looked at the love of my life, and saw her suicidal, and ready to… It makes me cry, I’m sorry… Ready to leave this earth, that I thought, we have to do something.”

So she sought professional help, and the couple started re-building the relationship that had started to crumble.

“Even though she wanted to run away and I wanted to let her we didn’t let that happen because we love our family and we love our children enough to know that we’re worth fighting for,” Laura said.
Finally, two and a half years after coming out to her wife, Laura was ready to share her secret with her boys.

“One day, I think Alex was probably 17, and I started to try and tell him that I was trangender, and that I’ve always been a woman, and that I was going to start expressing that and dressing that way. Alex just looked at me and goes, ‘I know, dad.’”

The conversation was even easier with 8-year-old Jake.

“We’d have little conversations, and it just built to the point where I told him what transgender was that I was a transgender woman and now he’s one of my biggest supporters.”

Despite the stereotypes ascribed to rural communities, farming neighbours were also largely supportive of Laura’s transition.

The Whites had been friends with the Budds for more than five years before Laura shared her secret.

“Laura’s a person. People are people. Everybody is different and we’re all just the way we are,” said Joanne White. “It was actually not really a big deal for me.”

But Laura’s father has struggled with the news.

“I was the only assigned male child in a rural family. He’s having a difficult time.”

A number of friendships failed to survive Laura’s transition.

“Some people have even withdrawn from our lives, they would have been friends for decades. They said I can’t have you around myself or my children,” she said. “I was very angry and bitter, and took it very personally.”

But Pat helped her learn she couldn’t expect everyone to react positively.

“This is me, and I have say in who I want in my life. And that’s them and they have say in who they want in theirs, and I just have to accept that,” Laura said.

Pat has continually built Laura up, until she finally felt she was worthy of being happy.

“She tells me every day that I’m pretty, and that she loves me. She put me back together. I felt like Humpty Dumpty,”

She even popped the question, to affirm their love.

“I knew that she wanted a diamond ring. I knew that it was important. I didn’t know how important till I gave it to her,” Pat said.

Laura said she was shocked by the question, but grateful. It made her feel their relationship was finally in the clear. “Piece by piece we built our love back to where it was and to new heights that we never thought it would be.”

For their 25th wedding anniversary, the couple will renew their vows as wife and wife.

“I told you once. Till death do we part. And I meant it,” Laura said, as she held Pat’s hand.