June 2012
2 posts
My blog has permanently moved! →
I want comments on my blog, so I’m moving to WordPress.
http://kelsienicole.wordpress.com/
Letting Go:
Sometimes you want something so badly that you keep fighting for it long after the battle is lost. I’ve been pursuing a particular few relationships for some time now, and frankly, I’ve got to be honest with myself and acknowledge that I’ve overspent on them, and still have nothing to show for it. I’m burnt out on them; I’m tired of trying when they haven’t.
I feel like I’ve been going through a...
May 2012
5 posts
The Gatekeeping Fallacy
The process of transition isn’t the same for all trans people, but there is a common pool of potential medical procedures and treatments that can be selected from, as desired. Some of these treatments and procedures can be undertaken freely (free as in freedom, not as in free beer); others require approval from a qualified professional. For the restricted treatments and procedures, you generally...
Re: Re: Re: upcoming family reunion, restrooms:
Aunt [name], Aunt [name], and Aunt [name],
I don’t care about the dormitory for the sake of the dormitory. I care about being treated the same as any other woman that comes to the reunion. Access to the dormitory is unquestioningly given to all of the other women that come to this reunion. You don’t ask about their genitals. You don’t check every new woman that comes around. You actually don’t...
Re: Re: upcoming family reunion, restrooms:
Kelsie,
We want you to know that no matter what choices you have made you are part of the [last name] family. We would not be having this dialog if that were not so. We care about you the same way we do any other family member no matter what the issue. We want to make this a wonderful [last name] reunion for all the [last name] family. We are sure that you concur and want the same.
I (Aunt...
Re: upcoming family reunion, restrooms:
Hey Aunt [name],
I’ve been pondering your proposed condition since we last spoke, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you on it.
As I’m sure you noticed, I am quite upset with your request that I avoid gendered spaces while attending this year’s family reunion. I was unable to fully articulate my feelings on this during our last conversation.
You made a statement to the effect...
Privilege & Marginalization
Over the last couple of days, I’ve experienced a very major internal rewiring. As I write this right now, I’m nearly in tears over realizing how blind I’ve been to my own participation in a problem that comes right around and negatively impacts me every day that I live. My hope is that you will read this and something in it will grab hold of your heart as well, like it did mine when I encountered...
December 2011
5 posts
Doubt and Regret
I’ve never been the type of person to put off decisions. When presented with a choice, no matter how difficult, I systematically narrow the options down to the best possible outcomes, and then if there is no remaining reason to pick one over the other(s), I pick a direction and run with it. Through much life experience of doing this, I’ve developed a good sense of danger, because I’ve ended up...
The Beginning and the End
A question that I am frequently asked is, “When are you getting the final surgery done? You know, the surgery.” I’ve mentioned my distaste for the idea that the state of my genitals has any bearing at all on who I am. But I think the question that people really want to know the answer to is how long I am going to be transitioning for. How much do I have left to go? What else do I have planned?...
Mom's Genitals - Continued
I’ve had a lot of people ask me to talk a bit more about this topic since my original post on the topic. There are actually a lot of flaws in the argument that genitals can define gender, more than I mentioned in the original article.
The thing I was saying in the original article about the singular “sex change operation” is really important. Unlike what a lot of people...
I Dodged a Bullet
I recently, after way too long, decided to fire my endocrinologist. Here is why:
He took my first bloodwork on the day that he prescribed my hormones the first time. He looked at those results 3 months later. On that same day, he took more bloodwork and increased my dosage. 3 months later, he looked at that bloodwork. He had me on hormones for 3 months before he even knew what my baseline...
Perfection
Anyone that knows me well knows that I believe in the existence of a being that I like to refer to as God. I avoid labels such as Christian and others because I don’t like a lot of the baggage that comes with it. I also don’t really buy into enough of the whole package of any religion to feel like I’m a member of one. My beliefs are quite simple and I’m pretty damned...
September 2011
3 posts
Rewriting History
I was having dinner this weekend with several people that I’ve known for most of my life. At several points in the conversation, we were reminiscing over the good ol’ days. The question of how to refer to me in the pre-transition past has come up several times in the past, and it came up again this time.
My personal preference is that people refer to me as Kelsie even when referring to me...
Mom's Genitals
For months now, I’ve been suppressing an intense and growing anger about the fact that my mom refuses to acknowledge my female identity. I’ve decided to write about it in order to vent a little, but also because she isn’t alone with her opinion.
She has this idea that there is a distinct thing called a sex change that one can get. This sex change involves getting a sex change operation performed,...
Nuggets of truth
I read a lot of transphobic shit these days. Usually, I run across a link on Reddit about an article that somebody wrote that contained a lot of hateful crap. I’ll first click the comments to get an idea of what people are so pissed about. Then, I’ll read the article and develop my own sense of things. More often than not, I’m finding that there are nuggets of truth in the articles, but buried...