Tag Archive | LGBT

Day 588 – License To Kill

SO, since it’s been nearly a month since I got my name changed I am finally going to get a new license. I am getting ready to go with my girlfriend to the RMV today. I put it off so long because I kept making excuses, “My hair doesn’t look good”, “My face looks bad!”, “I have nothing to wear!”, but it is time I finally got this done.

This picture is from the student art show this month, I am really happy with the way it came out. Anyways, I need to finish getting ready. I may post a picture of my new license when I get it.

Have a good weekend!

Abbey

Ginger who?

Remember me? I’m the ginger who used to post regularly about my transition and life. Speaking of life, that’s probably the reason I haven’t been posting! I apologize for that.

Since it’s nearly a month since my last post I decided it is time for a much needed update. You may recall the last thing I posted about was changing my name, well, I got it changed! I went to court and within an hour I was on the way home with two official copies of my name change papers. *queue cheering* Once I actually got my court date it was incredibly easy. After checking in at the clerks office I had to go into one of the court rooms and wait for a judge/magistrate. There was 20 or so other people waiting with me. When we sat down (my girlfriend, mom, and I) there was another girl behind us who was also changing her name. After a bit of talking I found out she was transitioning as well! It was a nice surprise to see someone else doing the same thing.

After the court official came in she called everyone up to check in and after looking over my papers and signing them she sent me back to the clerks office to have my forms printed. We simply walked back and gave the clerk my papers and waited a few minutes. Then like that I had my name change documents in hand!!

So far I’ve only changed my my name with the school and gotten a new school ID, but I am quite happy. 🙂

Aside from changing my name I have been pretty busy with school and my art. Above is my second set of bracelets inspired by My Little Pony. I’ve been making lots of jewelry lately and last week I found out I was going to have a piece in the student art show again. I decided I needed to make something big, so I came up with an idea to make a giant piece of chainmail out of rebar. Anyone who’s worked with rebar knows that it is not the easiest thing to bend.

With only a week to complete my piece before the deadline my father and I went to work wrapping ½” rebar around a 2-¼” pipe. The process was pretty time consuming considering we needed to wrap 50′ of rebar into 65 rings. After countless hours of torching and bending we created enough rings for my project. After that I went to work weaving and bending them into a sheet of Euro 4 in 1 chainmail.

This is what I ended up with, 27 pounds of rebar, weaved into a 2 square foot sheet of maile. After that I built a mounting bracket out of plate steel and ½” steel rod to mount it on the wall of my schools gallery. I torched and hammered the rod into hooks and then welded them into the plate using an ARC welded.

This it the mount after attaching it to the wall, we had some trouble figuring out how to mount it because the wall behind the drywall is cinderblock but we eventually got it to stay up with some Tapcons. (after snapping off several) The gallery opening is tomorrow night and I am sure I will have some better photos for anyone who is interested. 🙂

Anyways, as always thanks for reading, and I will try and update a bit more often.

Abbey

“8” A play about the fight for marriage equality

Some of you may or may not have heard about this already, but last night the play “8” aired live on youtube, based on the 2010 trial in the U.S. District court to overturn Prop 8. I think the cast of stars does an excellent job portraying those involved with the trial and gave an incredibly emotional performance. It runs about 90 minutes long but I highly recommend watching all of it.

Another thing I wanted to tell you about is the 2012 LGBT Census. You can take the census at the link below and it should only take 10-20 minutes. it is completely anonymous and the date will help spread awareness on LGBT issues. I just did it myself, check it out!

http://lgbt2012census.com/

Day 528 – Good news everyone!

 

After months of waiting I finally heard back about my name change and I have a hearing scheduled for the 13th of this month! After that I can go ahead and get a new license with my new name and an F marker, as well as change my name with the school. It will be such a relief to finally leave my old name behind and be recognized as Abbey by anyone, wether they be school officials, law enforcement, or my bank. I am very excited that I am finally making the next major step in my transition.

I am planning on taking a new set of measurements within the next week or two to see how my body has changed. Breast development seems to have slowed a bit, not surprising considering I’ve been on hormones for nearly one and a half years. I am considering gaining a little weight or increasing my fat intake to see how it effects my growth. My weight has been pretty steady at around 185 for the past year and I could probably do with a little more.

I recently read an interesting article about the use of progesterone in MTF HRT regimens. I was tempted to try taking progesterone myself but all the medical evidence I have seen points toward it having no effect on breast development. In fact the only information that is circulated is mostly rumors and misinformation spread by people who have no medical qualifications. Whatever your standpoint may be on the subject, you can read the article here. It’s only a few pages and is quite informative.

Dr. Richard Curtis seems like a respected member of the transgender healthcare field and works in a clinic in London. The clinic’s website can be found here.

Lately I’ve been getting back into making chainmail jewelry and I am going to try and actually sell some this time. I put in a big order from Theringlord.com that just shipped today and I am excited to get all kinds of colorful and rubbery rings to make beautiful bracelets out of! The necklace above is a piece I made last week after being inspired by another artist’s scale collars. I will probably post some more of my work once I get my new materials.

Anyways I hope everyone is having a great March!

Abbey

Transgender Equality Bill

Hello everyone,
This is going to be brief but I wanted to make a quick update about the Massachusetts Transgender  Equality Bill. The bill is set to be voted on tomorrow or Thursday. The part of the bill that mentioned access to gendered facilities has been taken out of the bill so there is no reason why it shouldn’t pass.

Today I met with House Representative Brad Hill to speak about the bill and why it is important. The meeting went fairly well and we talked for half an hour about the issues of transgender equality. The only thing that deters him from passing the bill is the fact that he believes transgender people are already protected. I am going to do some digging to see if there are any court cases in MA where a transgendered individual was not protected under current law.

That is it for now,

Abbey

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