Aubree Kellar Oral History Interview

Kellar begins the interview by discussing her childhood being raised Catholic and doing robotics, and how she felt some disconnect being in involved with very traditionally male activities, but she came to feel comfortable in it. She talks about her gender exploration process, which was very secretive, and took places in third spaces such as her car. She discusses thing that were euphoric, such as skirts, and dysphoric, such as jeans. She talks about her time in online spaces, which she thought were terrible due to the inability of anyone to help each other, but how she overcame than by finding a friend group online she could talk with. She then talks about the effects that HRT and transition had on her and her friends, and how much better they seemed after it. She moves then to talking about her time at OSU and in her program, reflecting on whether she chose this program for herself or for her parents. Lastly, she talks about the sourdough starter she brought, which represents the iterations she went through with her gender and the work she put into it to create some good.

Aubree Kellar is from Corvallis, Oregon and is studying mechanical engineering at OSU. At the time of the interview, she identified as a trans woman.

This interview was conducted in support of interviewer Jozie Billings' honors thesis project titled, "Beyond the Binary: Multimodal Oral Histories of Navigating Gender and Finding Identity from Gender-Diverse and Cisgender Students." More information about that project is available in the finding aid for the OSU Queer Archives Oral History Collection (OH 34).