The Spectrum

(This will be appearing in May's issue of the Rainbow Review) www.rainbowreviewpa.com

Hi everyone! I’d like to begin by wishing everyone a Blessed Spring! The weather here in Rhode Island has been fantastic the past week (sans flooding)! Being as though the weather has been so beautiful, people on motorcycles appear EVERYWHERE! And much to the surprise of many, I’m one of those many. That’s right, I ride motorcycles. And I’m a woman. A transgendered woman, proud to say that I’m living to the fullest as myself. Thus arriving at this months topic: the gender spectrum.

When I began my journey into womanhood, I tried, unsuccessfully to be a super feminine woman. What took me almost 3 years of realization, confusion, and wavering acceptance was that my core person is not a “girly girl.” I have discovered that I live on the middle of the gender spectrum. If I were painting the gender spectrum in an analogy, I’d paint it as such: Femininity ranges from Ellen to Mary Poppins to the women you look at and wonder “isn’t that a boy?”

That’s my long-winded way of telling you that I like some “guy things” and I also like some “girl things”. It’s taken me YEARS to accept that I have both feminine and masculine experiences and that I’m “allowed” to enjoy certain aspects of my former life.

My message this month is to be YOU. Whoever you are. No matter what. Never deny any part of you…even the parts that SOME people may look at sideways.

If you hang in there and endure it… I promise you, those sideways looks become looks of admiration. Until Next month….

Love and Lashes, Muahz n Snuggles!

--Kelli