KCinSD

Hello everyone, my name is Kelly. I live in the Black Hills Region of South Dakota. I am currently in process HRT and nearing GCS. I have been a firefighter/paramedic for the past 25+years. I am currently in school for a master's in counseling, specializing in trauma. I am not sure what other things someone might want to know, so please ask if you have any wishes of wanting to know.

I have spent my whole life in question of who I am. I realized at about 6 years old that something was not fitting with others my age. I preferred the girls clothes, playing with traditional girl toys, girls sports, and so on. They just felt correct. However, growing up in the 70s and 80s, transgender persons were considered mentally ill and people with these issues were considered to be contemptable. Couple the lack of ability to express who I am with the inability to find valid information on how and what could be done, I have lived a life of extreme confusion. I am finally well into the journey, but I so wish I would have known how to do this earlier in my life. It would have saved many years of confusion, anger, depression, and suicidal thoughts. It still feels worthless at times, that I have missed so much of my life that it would be just as easy to say the hell with it, not talking about quitting the journey, but rather the hell my life is (not sure that getting so dark in the "about me" is the right thing to do, but it is who I am). 

Today's environment is almost as tough to be transgendered in because there are so many who claim to be transgendered and who are out making a scene in order to show who they are, never mind who else it damages, as long as they get what they want. Yes, I am very bitter when people do that. After having lived a life where I, as well as many others, have been struggling to find the information to change my physical attributes to fit my mental/emotional attributes, it is beyond frustrating to be attempting to fit in without drawing attention to what we are going through but then get thrown into the same group with those who are, in my opinion, making a mockery of what many of us are going through.