kelly powell

The Struggle

I have been struggling with my gender identity since I was a child, having been ridiculed teased and even yelled at just for being who I am. The first thing I remember that feel like my emotional side that showed was when I was in preschool. I was dropped off by my mother, but when she left, I started to cry, and I could not stop. It was so bad that they called my father at work to come pick me up and boy was he livid. He took me back to his work. Being a grocery store manager, he had some of his employees grab diapers, a baby bottle and pacifier which he used to tease me with saying if I could not stop crying, he would put me back in diapers and feed me with the baby bottle. Looking back at that situation, he handled that the wrong way as it was the start of me being scared on the inside and wanting to hide myself. Around seven or eight years old I felt like a girl and wanted to be one. The thought running through my head was I wonder what it is like to be a girl.