According To Ashlee

Image by  Markus Winkler  from  Pixabay This week has been hard. Hell, it's been hard since Jan. 20, but that's a whole other conversation. Since coming out as transgender in October, I've been relegated to wigs. In June 2024, I was bald - as in razor shaved head sitting on a beach bald. So it's been slow going getting my hair to grow out. Knowing how hair works, I knew I needed to get the dead ends cut off to keep it healthy and growing, but thought, "What if I can style it in a pixie and feel comfortable?" On Monday, I went to a La Ti Da Salon and got it cut. The lady who did it was really sweet, despite my consistent inability to sustain small talk. (That's a lifelong issue for me. I just don't know how to do it being socially awkward.) On Tuesday, I went to work with just MY hair. Additionally, my breast development has gotten to a point to where, with a fairly complimentary bra, I can go without my forms. So, for the very first time ever, I was ju...

I never like comparing anything I go through to something someone else is dealing with. I'm infinitely guilty of saying to myself, "Others have it worse." In the same breath, I'm somewhat a student of history and can no longer deny what is right in front of us. (Fan-girl warning) To quote Gandalf The White: "The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time."  Every generation has their great battle, their struggle between good and evil, right and wrong. Christians will have you believe they are on the right side of history in the current war against the transgender community, using their holy texts as justification for the denial of basic human rights. Do you know who else made that argument, basing their hate in religion? In a flyer dating back to the second half of the 19th century , the Ku Klux Klan describes itself as "an Active Protestant organization with strong backing, insisting upon the unhampered mai...

Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images I'm a student of history. As a young woman in school, history was always the one class - with the exception of art and computer sciences - that I typically excelled at. One of the primary grievances the American Colonists had with England in the lead-up to the American Revolution was that they had no representation in the British government. Instead, they were ruled by a monarch half a world away. As I continue to digest everything that happened yesterday in Washington, D.C., I'm reminded of those words and how the colonists in the 1700's felt they were not represented by the government under which they lived. There are many things - if not outright all of them - that I strongly disagree with from yesterday, but I'm going to try (and fail) to focus on just one. In an email delivered to the White House press pool yesterday just prior to Mr. Trump taking the oath of office, this was at the bottom of a long list of "Day One" prio...

Pexels  from  Pixabay For a while I've sat down and started to write, but could never find the words. There are four entries left unfinished sitting in draft status as so much has happened since October. I've come out at work and being my best little authentic self. We all lost in the 2024 presidential election. I've been on hormone therapy for nearly three months and about to have my dosage increased. I'm still struggling with my ex-wife and daughter. And it seems as if my home life is on the verge of falling apart just as I feeling like myself. So let me start on a light note: My nipples hurt so bad!! The breast tenderness is real. My nephew came to our house a week or so ago and just ran and jumped on me. His left hand landed directly, full-weight on my right nipple. I didn't say anything, but my inner voice said many expletives. I can feel the breast buds growing which is such an amazing feeling. My body hair is also growing in thinner, which thank goodness beca...

( Pexels/Pixabay) The board is set. The pieces are moving. Five years ago, I made the irrational decision to bury her. I became overwhelmed and shoved her into a box. My sweet, dear Ashlee. She was tucked away tightly and neatly to never see the world again. Tomorrow, in less than 12 hours, she meets the world. I meet the world. Not random strangers in Birmingham. Not a select few I know in Piedmont. Not Nashville, New Orleans, or Atlanta. People I know and see everyday. People who are as much family to me as the family I live with. To say I'm scared is an understatement. I've cried a lot this week. I'm crying now as I write this. Not because I worry it's the wrong decision. No, I know it's not. Rather, because I know the gravity of the situation. I also know the questions I ask of myself and the world around me. "Will they love me?" "Will they treat me differently?" "Will they respect me?" "Am I some joke to them? Or worse, and ab...

Ulike Air 10 Okay, so we're poor bitches and don't have the money for professional laser hair removal. So, after weeks of research, we decided to give the Ulike Air 10 IPLE Hair Removel Device a try. The device, while heavy, isn't as heavy as I'd have imagined. It is somewhat bulky, but with the cooling fan in the device, it is to be expected. The controls are simple, albeit it took me a minute to figure out how to turn the auto flash on. The selling point of being "mostly painless" is very accurate. But, let me tell you, when it bites, it bites. I'm using SHR mode on my beard considering how thick it grows in and, on that fourth flash, it's a noticeable sting. I'm currently 5 days into using the device, doing a different body part each day so as to not repeat days and body parts. It boasts results in as little as two weeks, which is great because that's precisely when I will be when I will be ring announcing for ProSouth Wrestling again. I...