This heartfelt statement from Toshimi Tanio, a transgender woman and film producer, captures a powerful and emotional story about identity, love, family, and the journey of parenthood beyond traditional boundaries. Toshimi’s book, A Letter From a Father, delves deeply into her lived experience as a transgender woman who, despite complex challenges, embraces motherhood alongside her partner.
Born and raised as a man, Toshimi Tanio lived most of her early life feeling a disconnect with the gender assigned at birth. Since childhood, he harbored a quiet but persistent wish to live as a woman. Despite this internal truth, Toshimi lived as a man into adulthood and built a successful career as a reporter and correspondent, even serving as the Cairo bureau chief for Nippon Television from 2005.
It was during her time covering conflict zones in the Middle East that Toshimi’s yearning to live authentically intensified. Faced with life’s fragility and the urgency to live without regrets, she began gradually embracing her true self, first by wearing neutral clothing and light makeup, and then by openly expressing his desire to live as a woman. Upon returning to Japan in 2010, and with the support of her employer and a mental health diagnosis of gender identity disorder, Toshimi began hormone therapy and embarked on her gender transition at age 39.
