Lisa Salazar’s Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life is not just a memoir; it is a revelation of faith, identity, and courage written by a woman who spent nearly half a century living a life that wasn’t truly hers. Born in Colombia in 1950 and raised in California, Lisa, then known as Santiago, grew up in a world that had no words for what she was feeling. The term “transgender” did not yet exist in her vocabulary, leaving her sense of self adrift and unanchored. When she moved to Vancouver in the early 1970s, she built a successful career as a graphic designer and photographer, became a husband and father, and lived as a devout Christian. But beneath this picture of stability was an inner battle that only deepened with time.
After forty-eight years of living as Santiago, Lisa received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a term that finally put words to her lifelong sense of disconnect between her body and her identity. Yet the diagnosis did not bring peace. Instead, it opened the door to a decade-long spiritual crisis. Lisa could not reconcile what she now knew about herself with what she believed about her faith. She had lived for years as a man who loved his family, prayed earnestly, and believed that God could “fix” what she saw as her flaw. For her, transition was not a dream; it was a terrifying moral question.
In her own words, “Transitioning in July of 2008 was not what I wanted to do, it is what I had to do. My decision had nothing to do with courage; it was an act of desperation. The alternative was dying.” Transparently captures that raw honesty. It is the story of a woman who realized that self-denial was no longer an act of love, but a slow destruction. In choosing to live authentically, Lisa risked everything, her marriage, her friendships, her livelihood, but she gained something she had never truly known before: peace.
The book reads with tenderness and humility, written in a tone that is both deeply personal and quietly instructive. Lisa does not romanticize transition. She acknowledges the pain of losing her marriage after thirty-seven years, the fear of rejection, the panic of facing the world as a woman for the first time at fifty-eight. Yet she also shares moments of joy and rediscovery, when her mother complimented her clothing, when her sons accepted her without hesitation, when her faith, once a barrier, became a source of strength. She writes with complete transparency, as the title promises, revealing both her wounds and her healing.
When I interviewed Lisa for The Heroines of My Life in 2013, she spoke with the same humility and humor that fills her book. She told me how Transparently began almost by accident, as a series of email exchanges with a curious friend who wanted to know everything about her life. Those emails soon grew into a full manuscript. “She found my story riveting and inspirational,” Lisa recalled. “She pushed me to keep writing, and by the time I was done, I realized the process had been both cathartic and therapeutic.” Writing allowed Lisa to face her past with honesty, to laugh and cry in equal measure, and to find peace before undergoing her surgery. She finished the manuscript in just forty-five days.
Publishing it, however, took more courage. Lisa hesitated at first, unsure if her story would matter. But her friends insisted that it would help others, especially those struggling to reconcile gender identity with religious faith. When the book was released in 2011, readers discovered a work that was neither angry nor defensive, but profoundly compassionate. Lisa’s faith-based reflections offered a bridge between two worlds that often misunderstand each other: the church and the transgender community.
In our conversation, Lisa spoke about how she had once intended to live quietly after transition. She planned to disappear into normalcy, to “blend into the woodwork.” But life had other plans. Her public speaking engagements and writing led her into advocacy, almost against her will. A friend invited her to share her story at an event called Interesting Vancouver in 2010, and though she resisted at first, she eventually agreed. Standing before hundreds of people, she spoke not as a preacher or activist, but simply as herself. To her surprise, people listened. Her story resonated. That moment marked the beginning of her journey as a public advocate.
Lisa’s life is a study in paradox: she is both devoutly Christian and unapologetically transgender, a woman of faith and a woman of science, a private person who became an advocate by accident. Her story invites readers to reconsider the assumptions that often divide these worlds. She proves that faith and authenticity are not mutually exclusive; they can coexist, even flourish together.
Reading Transparently feels like sitting across from Lisa in a quiet café, listening to her speak softly yet with conviction about what it means to survive, to forgive, and to finally live as oneself. It is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand not only the transgender experience, but the human experience of reconciling belief with truth. As Lisa told me during our interview, she never expected to become an advocate, but she could not stay silent once she saw how her story could help others. “My decision to transition wasn’t about courage,” she said. “It was about choosing life.”
Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life is the testament of that choice, a story of faith tested and renewed, of love lost and self found, of a woman who finally stopped hiding and let the world see her as she truly was. For those still searching for their own truth, Lisa Salazar’s words shine like a small, steady light showing that authenticity, even when it comes late in life, is worth everything.
Available via Amazon
Photo via The Heroines of My Life
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