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Studying Resilience + Magical Things,+ Food
➕Inclusion is Human ♿️ 🧠 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ ✋🏾
➕Autism Boy Mom ♾️
➕Creative Genealogist 🎨
➕@inclusion_project

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The podcast episode has landed, titled “Her, They, and Us”. 🏳️‍⚧️
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You can find it by clicking the link in my bio...
Please be respectful. This is vulnerable for us and tells a lot of our mistakes too. We are not professional podcasters. We have a new appreciation for those that are. It’s around forty-five minutes but I think it’s worth your time. We recommend listening to it on double speed. This doesn’t need to be your whole life 😂 The resources shared are also in the podcast description. As my mom said to me several weeks ago, “You don’t have to get it, you just have to love [and I would add “and protect”].
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After this, our day to day sharing on here and the projects we do and the adventures we show up for tells plenty— And we aren’t done talking or advocating I promise but we feel like this shares what we needed it to.
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“Be careful who you hate. It could be someone you love”.
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Love is Love. Taking pictures of our family in the last few years has felt complicated. Our journey is very undone and there have been a lot of “what if this happens”, and “…but we’re still in the process of this” and so, memorializing us right now has felt like a major statement or a declaration rather than a simple moment for my family. I have been in flux and have noticed my struggle with undone things.
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Through a lot of internal work, I have reminded myself that undone things are beautiful. There has been a protectiveness for Jare and our story. I want them seen the way they feel now and I also want to be seen the way I feel and that’s a process. But we signed up to the take the photo, and Jare and I did this last year too for our little group. We knew it was important and with each time, my eyes have filled with tears remembering that, we have come a long way and this family is why I do what I do and it’s okay to have big feelings, even with a lot of unknowns.
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My friend Jalene @jalenetaylorphoto did such an incredible job this year. She captured so much of the love we have for each other. We have been so lucky to have so many talented photographers in the areas we’ve lived. I dabble in photography too and I appreciate pictures so much. There are SO many good ones, it was hard to choose which ones to share. Grateful tonight and reminding us all that love leads. 🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 💕 by @inclusion_home

This is the most nerve-wracking post to date for both of us, but it is time and our family has felt that peace.
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This is Jare actually, Kathryn’s spouse. I know this is Kathryn’s account. I don’t use my Instagram account much anymore and our friends, family, and acquaintances are here. This is of course united with support from Kathryn.
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I am transgender. Some may have guessed this. Others will be surprised. I recognize it is a lot to process. I have felt this way since I was a young child. I became good at pretending and playing the typical male stereotype in every way to avoid facing the pain underneath. In my experiences growing up, I felt that no one could ever know and I had to hide in order to survive.
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Kathryn has known for years and as we have navigated through a lot of really hard things (heart wrenching things) we both have become ready to be open about sharing this part of my life and our life. We won’t share everything. A lot will remain private.
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I know everyone wants to know what will happen next but we don’t have the answers either. We have joy in taking it day by day. We love each other. We love our family. We are devoted to doing what’s right for us. I love Kathryn more than I can begin to express in this post and facing some of the pain I caused from hiding, while celebrating and accepting an identity that we both are grateful for has taken up a lot of our marriage. It has been a true inclusion project.
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We will share very soon, for anyone interested, an hour or so podcast episode that we have started recording that tells our story and hopefully shares a more human perspective on what being transgender looks like. This is our family’s experience, not everyone’s. While this is a somewhat solemn post - it is also a celebration 🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ for who I am and what I’ve been through. I am grateful to so many people that have lifted me, listened, and shown support to Kathryn and I.
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Chasing sunsets and time. You can never get enough of either. by @inclusion_home

Running through the treat trails like we own the place. Some chills, thrills, and Mickey ears. Rowan is tall enough to go on all the rides. We scared him a bit on Incredicoaster. He gave a thumbs down saying it was too scary but then he asked to go again when he found out his brothers were trying it a second time. 😜🙃. by @inclusion_home

25.20 for 3.3 miles. There were so many obstacles for him in this race and he did so good. We are all sick unfortunately. I actually don’t love to give incentives for things like sports or much of anything. Self motivation and dedication are important skills to obtain I feel however, Logen is very reward motivated (and aren’t we all!? 😛), so he convinced me to buy him licorice. Interestingly, both times he requested licorice, - he got a best time. We had a similar experience with Everett this year and baseball. Ev’s incentive however was watching a football game if he tried hard in baseball ⚾️ 😆
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It’s a curious thought on if we give ourselves incentives for doing things that don’t cost much or we allow our children to lead that and it’s not as desperately pushed as a bribe - it’s curious to if those self led incentives in time will support self dedication on its own. I don’t have the answers, just sitting in my thoughts about it. by @inclusion_home

Early fall vibes with a lot of big things
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Me : I have a new ambassador job for the Women’s History department at the Utah Historical Society - it’s awesome, my first surgery for idiopathic Subglottic stenosis went well. I can breathe better definitely but I’m still healing and waiting for a post op appointment. I have my first shot in my throat in a few weeks. It’s a long road and it has humbled me quite a bit. I have had a few meltdowns despite being so grateful for people willing to help and serve our family and me.
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Jara : Jare is going through an official legal name and gender marker change. This has been a long time coming and it’s a good thing with lots of peace. The full name will be Jara. I’ve know about that name for years and I’m sure more will be shared in due time but I’m excited! Jare is still a nickname.
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Boys : Logen got a job at Cross E Ranch and is running cross country! He is doing great with classes too. Cruz will be taking his AP French test at the end of the year. He made the Bountiful Fall baseball team be he is also running cross country. He is super busy and figuring out balance in the future. Everett loves and is obsessed with football, hoping to be a future wide receiver for the 49ers, and unlike Cruz, he just likes baseball. He has made strides with it though and never complains about going. He is sad we didn’t have room for Race Cats cross country. Rowan has been doing amazing with kindergarten and then, he is extra grumpy after at home. We anticipated this and decided to ease in on activities but he will be doing basketball in the winter time. He is constantly playing his own version of board games at home. I’m sure pieces are missing in every one of them now. 😜 by @inclusion_home

Ev’s last church primary program which is wild. 🥹 Ro wearing Ev’s 8 year old suit that I got for his baptism years ago. These youngest two…always up to something. by @inclusion_home

$Idiopathic Subglottic Stenosis. Say that three times fast. 😆 _____ I didn’t need another diagnosis and yet, I’m glad to know what’s going on. Well, mostly- there is still more to know on how hard this will be. It is a rare inflammatory condition that narrows the windpipe, causing scarring and inflammation just below the vocal chords. Research is ongoing but it primarily affects women. My throat is over 50% closed at this point and so I will be having my first surgery next week to cut out the scar tissue. It would be good to actually breathe. After surgery, there will be monthly kennalog shots, in my throat. 😳 _____ Most need multiple surgeries over time as the scar tissue grows back. We will see. _____ I have been struggling to breathe for years. I was told it was allergies a decade or more ago. I thought I just wasn’t as routine as I needed to be with my allergy meds but it kept getting worse. I couldn’t run or workout very easily. I kept trying to push through. I thought I must be out of shape and need to focus harder. When my voice gave out when singing, I thought I just was getting sick a lot and the cough had caused chronic issues. This last year however, when the wheezing and coughing wouldn’t stop, it was clear something else was up. I thought, it must be asthma. But it wasn’t. I did fail parts of the asthma test but after a scope with a throat specialist at the U, they found scar tissue all over my throat and they finally knew. I have been breathing through a straw. _____ I have a lot of mixed emotions coming to terms with something else to deal with. I was just diagnosed the first week of August but I am excited to breathe again. I almost didn’t announce this at all because it feels so dumb and yet, some have asked and I also hate to be fake on here posting the good, ignoring the hard and pretending it doesn’t exist. _____ On a side note, I got quite a giggle choosing which background song to post. Too many good ones to choose from 😝 Take my Breathe Away. ________ \ Faith Hill’s Breathe \ Every Breathe You Take by the Police \ Harder to Breather by Maroon 5 Feel free to add more in the comments for me ;) Maybe I should create a playlist. by @inclusion_home$

Soaking up these last moments of pool time 💦 by @inclusion_home

Sunday night football has become a vibe. Everett never misses when it’s offered. The teens are sometimes in. Logen even showed up for a bit tonight. This parenting thing is going by fast. And then there are slow intense moments too. My to-do list feels overwhelming and the weather is weird right now 🥵 ⚡️. I’ve been feeling a lot of stress lately with the future and my health but even for a moment, being here is what I’ll miss one day most. by @inclusion_home

I did a lot of “lasts” with Everett - the last bottle, the last preschool, the last first words, etc. And then I found out I was pregnant with Rowan as I sent Everett to kindergarten. Yesterday, as I sent Rowan to kindergarten, that was the beginning of all the first lasts again. And it brings some emotion. Some have asked me recently, Why did you send Ro to the public school instead of Spectrum Academy like his brother? I’ve also been asked about how he’s doing. You’ll have to read through this babble to get there. You can scroll images and see new captions for the whole thing.

I got pregnant not long after the pandemic had begun in full force. My life changed instantly. Getting pregnant was probably one of the most impulsive, complicated, and beautiful outcomes I’ve ever faced. But it was complex. Jare had already come out to me as transgender in 2015 and had gone back into the closet, dealing with a great deal of shame and anxiety. I was the keeper of their secret, the protector of our unknown and I was trying in every way to safeguard that for my kids and Jare, and now I found myself even more vulnerable.

Still, Ro was welcomed with SO much love and adoration. We were enamored by his instant joy and when he started to show some signs of autism, as we had seen before, we knew exactly what to do.

We accessed Early Intervention Services. We got on a waitlist to have him properly tested. He had some autistic traits, and yet it also was different than before. As you know - if you know one individual with autism, you know one individual with autism. (Logen is in the gorilla costume)

The first test was inconclusive and the team (including me) decided to wait and test again in 9 or so months. He still received early intervention services and when we tested again, he had barely met the criteria (but he did meet the threshold) for an autism diagnosis.

So where are we today? Rowan has made so much progress in his language that beyond some phrases, and sounds, he doesn’t have a lot of speech goals. He also has become less rigid with things. Sometimes that’s still hard. He does have the same autistic traits including some sensory needs and he still has an ASD diagno by @inclusion_home

Kathryn Jenkins

@inclusion_home