How does a forty-three-year-old straight white man suddenly realize she has always been a gay woman? That question sits at the heart of Sorry I Was Such a D!ck, When I Had One!, a memoir whose outrageous title barely hints at the tenderness, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence inside. Dee McWatters tells a story that feels at once deeply personal and strangely universal, a story about what happens when a life that looks complete on the outside can no longer contain the truth growing inside it.
For decades, Dee lived as Darren McWatters, a husband, a father, a respected professional in the British Columbia wine industry, a volunteer firefighter, a hockey referee, and a deeply embedded member of her small town community in Summerland, BC. From the outside, it was the kind of life that signals stability and success, the kind of life that rarely raises questions. Inside, however, was a constant, unnamed ache, a quiet sense of wrongness that followed her from childhood into adulthood, through relationships, work, and service to others. The memoir does not romanticize this dissonance. Instead, it lets readers sit with the confusion, the denial, and the exhausting effort of trying to be someone you are not, even when you do not yet have the language to explain why.
Dee’s writing is strikingly honest, often laugh-out-loud funny, and unafraid of discomfort. Humor becomes both a shield and a bridge, a way to tell painful truths without turning away from them. She writes about purging closets, not only of clothes but of identities that never quite fit. She writes about coming out in places where masculinity is tightly policed, including hockey rinks and fire halls, spaces where she had once felt competent and safe, and where vulnerability now carried real risk. These moments are not presented as triumphs wrapped in neat bows. They are messy, awkward, sometimes heartbreaking, and always deeply human.
The book is deeply rooted in place and community. Born in Vancouver in 1974 and raised in the Okanagan Valley after moving there in 1979, Dee grew up alongside her older sister working in her family’s winery, Sumac Ridge. That early immersion in responsibility and tradition shaped her work ethic and her sense of belonging. As an adult, she followed her father, the late Harry McWatters, into the BC wine industry, spending three decades in roles spanning production, procurement, logistics, and operational management. These details matter because they ground the story in a life built on continuity, loyalty, and legacy, making the eventual transformation feel even more seismic.
Community service has always been central to Dee’s identity. Long before she came out, she gave her time as a hockey coach, an on-ice official, a firefighter, and a service club volunteer. These roles were not performative, they were expressions of a genuine desire to contribute and protect. After coming out and beginning her transition in 2017, Dee recognized that her sense of community had expanded, and that she now belonged to the marginalized 2SLGTBQIA+ community. The memoir captures the emotional complexity of that realization, the grief of understanding past privilege, the fear of new vulnerability, and the determination to show up anyway.
That determination quickly translated into advocacy. Dee became involved with South Okanagan Similkameen Pride and the Kelowna Pride Society, serving as Director of Transgender Community Involvement, and later stepped into the role of Vice President of Advocacy Canada, a national 2SLGTBQIA+ advocacy organization based in Kelowna. These roles are not presented as résumé highlights but as extensions of her personal journey, a way of turning lived experience into tangible change for others.
One of the most powerful threads in the book is the concept of gender joy. Dee does not shy away from the pain of transition, the losses, the relationships that change or end, the fear of being truly seen. Yet she consistently returns to the idea that joy is not a frivolous byproduct but a necessary destination. Joy appears in small moments, in being called the right name, in the freedom of self-expression, in the relief of no longer pretending. By adding an “i” to her name and becoming Darrien, a name that signifies identity, Dee marks not just a change but a reclamation. Friends and family calling her Dee becomes a symbol of intimacy and acceptance, a shorthand for a self that finally feels whole.
Sorry I Was Such a D!ck, When I Had One! speaks to anyone who has ever struggled with belonging, identity, or the fear that it might be too late to start over. Dee’s story challenges the idea that self-discovery belongs only to the young or the brave. It argues, quietly but firmly, that authenticity is not a luxury and that the courage to live truthfully can emerge even after decades of silence. In telling her story with such openness, Dee McWatters offers readers permission, not to follow the same path, but to listen more closely to themselves.
This is a memoir about unbecoming what no longer fits and beginning again with intention. It is about accountability, humor, resilience, and the refusal to waste one more day pretending. Above all, it is a reminder that living authentically is not just possible at any age, it is worth everything it asks of you, and it can lead, unexpectedly and unapologetically, to joy.
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Photo via deemcwatters.ca
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