Community rallies around 70-year-old transgender actor who lost teeth in attack near 2SLGBTQ+ bar in Hamilton
CBC
Lisa Stroud flashes a wide smile when she talks about her burgeoning acting career.
The 70-year-old Hamilton woman has been in 11 film and television productions, alongside stars such as Josh Hartnett (M. Night Shyamalan's film Trap) and Kim Cattrall (TV series Glamorous), since she first responded to a casting call online in 2021.
These days, the trans actor is thankful not just for her line of work, but also getting back the confidence to smile.
Stroud went without many teeth — and as a result, acting gigs — for seven months following an attack in March after leaving The Well, Hamilton's only bar marketed to the local 2SLGBTQ+ community.
"I was grabbed from behind, swung around and just pummelled in the face, over and over again."
Stroud described blacking out before waking up, picking up her teeth off the ground, getting into her car and driving home.
"Apparently I was bleeding quite a bit on the outside of my driver's door."
Stroud reported the attack to Hamilton police the next day, but so far, no one has been arrested. She said one of the detectives told her that her experience was "definitely a hate crime."
Stroud doesn't understand why anyone would want to target her. She said she has led a peaceful life and hasn't harmed anyone.
"My God, I was married. I have a son," she said. "I worked at Dofasco for 35 years and I'm a law-abiding citizen …. Why is there so much hate out there?"
Stroud's transition to being an out trans woman took place over decades, an identity she says she's felt inside from her earliest memories.
She began dressing in feminine clothing at home while a preschooler in the city's west end. After finishing high school at Westdale Secondary, she worked at what's now the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel mill as a tradesperson with tickets in plumbing, pipefitting, gasfitting and steamfitting. She got married and had a son, then got divorced.
Stroud never let on about her trans identity at work — "it was, you know, a redneck place" — but after work, she'd come home, shower and change, spending the evening as Lisa.
"I was happy after work. I couldn't wait to get home to get dressed."
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