Kelly Ducharme Staff Member Pronouns: She, Her, Hers
Kelly Ducharme identifies as a transgender woman and currently works at UNH as a Senior IT Manager. She has worked at UNH since 2005. Kelly first knew she was transgender around four years of age when she was at a roller skating rink. She admired all the pretty outfits and white roller skates that all the girls were wearing and wondered to herself, “Why can’t I wear a pretty outfit and white roller skates instead of pants and plain black skates?” Kelly grew up in a low-income, religiously conservative French Catholic family on the West Side of Manchester. Kelly quickly discovered how important it was for those assigned male to always appear tough, never cry and play with “boy things.” Although Kelly sometimes wore girl’s clothes in secret, she was able to hide her transgender identity from her friends and family while growing up. In fact, Kelly did not tell anyone about being trans until she confided in her first wife at the age of 19. Kelly also told a counselor about her gender identity at age 23 while serving in the military. The counselor had to redact the information in Kelly’s file in order to protect her from potential discrimination given the military’s rejection of LGBTQ people at that time. During her seven-year stint in the Army, Kelly continued to struggle with her inner feminine gender identity and living in a masculine role that did not fit who she was. As with many transgender people, the inner turmoil this can cause within a person is tremendous, and Kelly was no exception. In 1991, Kelly welcomed her daughter Caitlin into the world, one of the happiest events of her life. In 2003, Kelly hit a point where something had to change because she was expending tremendous emotional energy concealing her true self. She discovered a newly forming New England chapter of the longtime organization Tri-Ess, which stands for the Society for the Second Self. Tri-Ess is an international educational, social, and support group for heterosexual cross-dressers, their partners, and their families and has more than 30 chapters nationwide. Once a month at Tri-Ess events, Kelly was able to dress as her true self and meet people like her for the very first time. Being in community with other trans folks was a great relief to Kelly and very much helped her on her path to self-acceptance. As she gained more self-acceptance, her relationship with her first wife deteriorated and they separated in 2008. After the separation, Kelly now had the freedom to live an authentic life but was also terrified that she would be alone for the rest of her life. Who would want to be with her as a transgender person? To her pleasant surprise, Kelly met a wonderful woman, Melissa, who was accepting of her cross-dressing and even was okay going out with Kelly dressed en femme. The couple married in 2012. Following the wedding, the more she allowed Kelly to come out and shine, the more she realized that she wanted to be able to live full-time as a woman. Living a bi-gender life was not enough. Kelly continued to try to please her family and not press the transgender issue by living only part-time and concealing it from some people for their comfort. She reached a breaking point a year into the marriage and realized she needed to do something to make her body come into greater congruence with her identity. She started Hormone Replacement Therapy [HRT] and has since come out to her co-workers at UNH and joined campus groups to advocate for transgender rights and inclusion. Kelly feels that the most rewarding part of being transgender is being able to express who she is openly and be proud of the person she has become. Kelly has felt like she was expected to fit into a rigid pecking order for most of her life due to cultural expectations around gender, power and status. In the trans community, she sees greater equality and a desire to put authentic self-expression above conformity to dominant societal norms. But this integrity has required great bravery and perseverance. As a veteran, Kelly states that it has taken more courage to come out and live as a transgender woman than it ever took for her to be a soldier and confront being deployed into a war. While Kelly has experienced a lot of support, she has also dealt with prejudice in some quarters and the emotional impact this experience has had on her and her family members. This bias has encouraged Kelly to speak out on trans issues and work to educate those around her to think beyond the myths and stereotypes that are so often made about gender-variant people. In the face of the challenges, Kelly is optimistic about her future and the progress that the trans community is steadfastly making in our society. She wants people to know that transgender people are everyday heroes just like their cisgender counterparts: as excellent employees, parents, role models and much more. “As long as I can look in the mirror and see Kelly, clothes don’t matter.” The path to self-acceptance has not been an easy one, but for Kelly the joy of truly living as her authentic self has been worth the price of the ticket. In addition to working in her position at UNH, Kelly continues her home life with her wife, daughter and granddaughter, Wynter, who was born in December of 2012. She will begin presenting full time as Kelly in the workplace in July 2016.