Twenty-three years ago my parents were told “it’s a girl.” The doctor marked ‘F’ under gender on my birth certificate, slapped a pink bow on my head and I was off to face the world full of society’s expectations of gender. For the next twenty-two years I lived in a body that never felt quite right. And because of that I was a very quiet and awkward kid who had horrible social anxiety.

My mind has blacked out a lot of my early childhood. The good memories are still there though. Running around the neighborhood with the boys playing Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh. Climbing trees and building forts in the backyard.

I let go of who society wanted me to be and became who I wanted to be.

I had no awareness of gender back then. I never thought of myself as a girl but I didn’t know how to communicate that I felt like a boy. The years went by, my childhood ignorance faded and reality hit me smack in the face when I started middle school and puberty.

I started attending private school in the sixth grade and of course there were uniforms. The girls wore skirts and the boys wore pants. There wasn’t anything more in this world that I wanted than to wear those pants. So I did.

For a week I wore those pants with a smile on my face and confidence in my step. But the more I wore those pants the more I felt different, and I didn’t want to feel any more different than I already did. So the pants went in the closet for the rest of my school days and my identity went with them. From that day forward I told myself I was going to fit in. But that was easier said than done.

Nothing feminine came naturally to me. I was bullied into shaving my legs, I wore my younger sister’s old clothes, I felt awkward in dresses, and I got along better with the boys. For a while I felt invisible. I didn’t really feel like I belonged anywhere and I felt very alone. Seventh grade rolled around and I joined the cross country team. I was a scrawny kid but I found some success in the sport early on. By eight grade I was running with the high schoolers. Running gave me a confidence I had never experienced before. It changed my life. I found myself scoring on the Varsity team during freshman year. When senior year came I was the number one runner and qualified for the track state meet in both the mile and the two mile.

While running was a high point for me, I still had a lot of lows.

Throughout high school I didn’t have many real friends. No one I’d want to actually hang out with outside of school. I never had a feeling of completeness as something always felt missing. I was so terrified of being different by the time I got to college I threw myself into trying to fit in. It was a disaster. College was the first time I had ever tried alcohol. It numbed the pain and my lowest point hit when I woke up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning on Halloween night.

That was a turning point. I began to let a part of me out that had been deeply hidden for years. I went to online chat rooms and posed as a college boy who went by the name of Jake. I stayed up late at night texting through a video chat with my long hair tucked up under a hat. I talked to a lot of girls and them seeing me as male just felt right. But this also scared the hell out of me.

This didn’t feel normal, it actually felt weird and I never wanted anyone to know my secret. So even though I kept my Jake profile up, I made it a point to present as much as a girl as I could. Almost to the point of overcompensating.

This went on until my last year of college where reality really hit me hard. It was the reality that I couldn’t live in this closet forever. I couldn’t inhabit a body that I could barely look at in the mirror. I took baby steps and came out as a lesbian in October of 2014.

It felt incredibly wrong and like I had gone deeper into the closet.

Slowly I got rid of all my female clothing and began to incorporate male clothing into my wardrobe. I shaved one side of my head and less than a month later just cut it all off. I still remember that day clearly.

I was sitting in the spinning chair at the hairdressers with a black cape fastened tightly around my neck. The hairdresser made a few snips and I watched the long locks that had caused me so much pain, just fall to the floor silently. I looked in the mirror and saw myself for the first time. Twenty-two years is a long time to see a stranger every time I looked in the mirror. But as silly as it sounds, that haircut changed my life.

Because I was still competing on the women’s track team I chose to wait until after the last meet of the season to disclose my secret. The few months before I came out were difficult. I was presenting as a lesbian but attracted to straight females. It was an internal struggle that ultimately led to multiple heartbreaks. But it made me strong and confident because I knew who I was no matter what anyone else told me.

The last track meet was in mid-May and my parents were attending. So I made plans to tell them that weekend. I had already come out to one of my roommates, a few friends, and my sister. All had gone well up to that point, but I was still terrified this would not go so smoothly. It was Mother’s Day so I had bought my Mom a gift and brought it to my parents’ hotel room.

In the bottom of the gift bag I had shoved two letters that I had written detailing my coming out. My Mom opened the gift and then I showed her the letters at the bottom of the bag. They each took a letter and sat on the bed and began reading. I was on the other bed sitting beside my sister having a huge panic attack inside.

It took them a few minutes to read the letters and once they were through there were tears. To this day I still don’t think they entirely knew what my intentions were with transitioning but it didn’t matter because they told me they would support me no matter what.

The confidence I gained from having their acceptance was incredible. Now I won’t say it was a smooth process but I believe I was very lucky to have had such an open and loving support system.

Losing a daughter was not easy for my Mom.

She took her time to grieve, which I let her do. It was a very emotional time for her. I began seeing a gender therapist and she wrote my letter for testosterone after a month of weekly visits. I scheduled an appointment with the endocrinologist the next day and received my first shot of testosterone on June 10, 2015. My family made an agreement to switch pronouns and begin calling me by my preferred name after my first shot.

So I came home and was greeted by my Dad who shook my hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Jeffrey”. For my Dad it just seemed to click with him that he had a son. My sister said she never felt like she had a sister anyways. And my Mom, well she had a hard time letting go of Jennifer and welcoming Jeffrey. But everyone deals with this differently and that is completely okay.

After starting testosterone I still couldn’t bring myself to look in the mirror unless I had my chest tightly bound in a binder. This was turning into a bigger and bigger problem as I was finding it hard to move forward in life while my chest was always in the front of my mind. After weeks and weeks of my parents asking every day what I planned to do with my life I sat them down for a talk in early October.

I could feel the sweat dripping down my back as I nervously explained the problem. I told them top surgery was what I needed to do before I could move forward in any meaningful way. They agreed and I set a date for top surgery with Dr. Charles Garramone. I went under the knife on November 5, 2015 for my first sexual reassignment surgery to have the two biggest problems in my life removed. A literal weight was lifted from my chest.

I woke up from surgery and the first words that came out my mouth were, “Are they gone?”

This experience has taught me a lot about both myself as well as about others. Before I came out as transgender I thought I would be ridiculed and shunned. I thought I was alone, but in reality there are hundreds of thousands of people just like me. Some of them don’t have the support of their loved ones or even the courage to come out and be themselves.

I graduated with a film degree wanting nothing more than to move out to Los Angles and work in the big film industry there. But lately I’ve been rethinking that and trying to figure out how I can use my love of film and make a difference in this community. After being exposed to all the struggles and hopelessness some people are feeling I feel a sense of duty, a calling if you will, to help my brothers and sisters.

With that being said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But the future only comes one day at a time. Patience is the key and I can say this confidently from experience. Always remember you are enough. And last but perhaps most importantly, there is absolutely no shame in living an authentic life.

My name is Ashley Olafsen, I am 19 years old, and I literally just published a book!

I’m really excited for you all to read it – It’s called Survival of the Prettiest: The gender, mental health, and sexualization crisis as told by a teenager. I wrote it because it’s the book I wish I had when I was younger, and I basically just talk about body image, media, mental health, relationships, competition, and a bunch of other issues that kids and teenagers face while trying to grow up. I tell my stories and share my friends, and what’s even cooler is that the book is interactive and filled with reflection questions!

Let’s back track:

When I was 15 years old, I became angry about the things my friends and I were going through. We were dealing with low self-esteem, poor body image, mental health issues, unhealthy relationships, and so much more. For example, I was really struggling with my body image. I hated the way my thighs, stomach, eyebrows – pretty much everything looked. My insecurities were truly affecting me and keeping me from speaking up during class discussions, and becoming my authentic self. It seemed like NO one was talking or even cared about what we were facing, and it felt like there was this unresolved crisis going on right in front of my eyes!

I refused to accept that reality.

I decided that I wanted to get a conversation going. And more than that, I wanted to play a role in helping my friends and myself live up to our full potentials.

So, alongside three friends, I gave a self-confidence empowerment workshop to a group of 8th grade girls. My friends and I shared our personal experiences with the girls, in hopes that it would inspire them. And it did – so much so, that one of the girls decided to create a MOVEment with me.

Her name is Lexie Phipps and the two of us have joined together to create MOVE (Motivate. Overcome. Value. Empower) – Together, Lexie and I spread our MOVEment across the world. MOVE is a program designed to help empower girls into body positive, confident leaders and role models. We also focus on the importance of getting help as well as preventing unhealthy relationships. We give workshops at schools and even direct a 5 day summer program. This year, we had 70 girls!! To check out a video of what happened at the summer program, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=OwbVvNpS4p0

In addition to MOVE, I’m also a TEDx speaker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFP2yQths0) and Huffington Post contributor. I spend a majority of my time working to empower individuals to reach their full potentials, and will do this through whatever medium I can get my hands on. For example, here’s an article I wrote on 5 ways to become body positive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5-tips-to-become-body-positive-self-confident_us_573de084e4b0084474946a0d

And here we are today – with a published book! I worked on Survival of the Prettiest for a little under three years. I researched, wrote, edited, revised, revised again, cited, cried over, drank lots of coffee over, and lost sleep over this book…It was a tedious yet fun, passionate yet LONG process.

I can’t imagine not writing it – I feel that what I have to say is important and worth saying.

My Recommended Resource:

Survival of the Prettiest: the gender, mental health, and sexualization crisis told by a teenager by Ashley Olafsen

I would love for you to be part of the conversation, and I'm hoping that the book will leave you inspired, empowered, and more vocal.

Check out my book, and let me know what you think

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Thank you for reading & wishing you all the best!!

As I cringed and opened my email, my first reaction is the all too familiar “I must not be Mexican enough for their program.”

Followed up with incidences of colleagues using of my racial status in quotations, I am left feeling both arguments of not enough. Not enough Mexican. Not enough White.

If you ever wondered what it is like to only be half…I reopen the calloused wounds of rejection from minority programs. It was the perfect program; exactly the kind of work I want to do as a clinical researcher, making the kind of changes I want to contribute to the world. I thought for sure as a dietetics major, I would present a unique opportunity for this northern hospital to diversify its research mentor program.

But despite my laundry list of accolades and good marks in clinical and pre-med classes, I am searching for another minimum wage summer job with salsa playing painfully in the background. This is not to say that there are other factors at play, but society has successfully trained me to shy away from applications that have a minority requirement despite not only being a first-generation Mexican-American, but also college student.

Clearly, the bootstraps mentality is not enough.   You can’t talk about being a minority without exploring the unique experiences that transverse the stereotypes society expects. Never have I been deemed a fiery Latina ready to serve a silver bullet of tempered Spanish with flirty hips swaying and tantalizing tendrils of voluptuous hair.

Instead, my quiet demeanor only adds to the perception that I am a white lady; to be feared. I am called ma’am like a southern belle, born and reared. And yet, this is not the narrative I ever expected. It is so important that we stop expecting people to fit racially driven stereotypes. The field of dietetics is somewhere around 95% white female. While my aim is not to dismiss individual stories, we must build up the people who are going into this field whether they are white or not, female or not.

With racial groups, come cultural food norms.

And yet, when we talk about healthier options, our discussions are riddled with white norms. We are replacing unhealthy “white foods” first. Not only does that spells dismissal for thousands of people needing guidance from registered dietitians, but in an instant a child is taught you don’t eat like me, so you don’t deserve the same health as me.

Doctors, firefighters, and even dentists persuade children to grow up and make waves in their field. They persuade them to grow up to be big and strong, brave, and have a healthy smile. When will minority children reach the collegiate classroom with their own stories of dietitians who helped them, who told them they too could grow up to be movers and shakers in the field? But wait. Maybe that’s  not it at all. Maybe they didn’t see the STEM in dietetics. Maybe they missed all the pre-med classes, the clinical training, and understanding of medical diagnosis.

It doesn’t seem as far-fetched as I consider a recent blog that cried out for doctors to have nutrition training when we have an ENTIRE field of professions armed with their evidence-based practice to change perceptions about food.

For now, I will brush off my recent rejection letter. I might indulge in a pint of ice cream-moderation of course. But, I will hold onto my Mexican Bootstraps. I will continue to seek out opportunities to be a mover and a shaker in my field, in my research, and in my future practice. But tonight I will wonder, maybe if I had been named Guadalupe then things would be different.

(Written by Lauren Husney)

“Is there any way you can get your waist and hip measurements down? Then we’d love to have you.”

There is something very wrong with these words that are being said to many girls across the world. It’s not okay to make girls think that if they don’t have a 24-inch waist, they can’t walk the runway.

That they aren’t wanted. They aren’t beautiful. Because that’s definitely not true. People tell me all the time that at 5’11 I should be a model. But every time I get close to being sucked into the industry, I am sent back to reality and realize that I don’t want to support this industry.

I can’t be a part of something that makes others feel bad about themselves, even if it is something I enjoy.

Just because I have good genes means I get an opportunity that others can’t have? That’s not right. I love being in front of a camera and getting to dress up as a new person each time, and that’s something every girl deserves. Everyone deserves to feel beautiful, even more so than the Victoria’s Secret models.

Because there are so many girls out there who aren’t being recognized for their beauty both on the inside and outside. It’s easy to feel self-conscious about yourself, but just know – you aren’t alone. There isn’t a person in the world that doesn’t have insecurities about something. So recognize yourself. Be proud of yourself. Don’t let what you see in magazines and on TV discourage you, because under all of that professional hair and makeup, they’re normal people just like you and me.

Everyone can be beautiful, no matter if you wear a size 0 or 18.

So get out there – dance like nobody’s watching, sing like nobody’s listening, and enjoy life to the fullest – and capture it with your memory or camera. We all deserve to feel happy and beautiful. After all, we are just ordinary people capable of extraordinary things. Oh, and don’t forget to smile!