🏳️⚧️Claire 🏳️⚧️<p>Hi my name is Claire and I am a transgender woman.</p><p>Today, March 31, is International Transgender Day of Visibility. It is a day to celebrate and draw attention to the lives of transgender people.</p><p>2 years ago this recent Friday I took my first dose of gender affirming hormone therapy. Just the changes in my mental outlook and processing of emotions felt so profoundly correct that I knew I could never go back to living the way I did before. </p><p>I wasn't out to many people at that point, but slowly over the next 6 months I started coming out to close friends and family and living my life as a woman in my personal life. I still presented as a man at work though. Finally last May, with the help of my manager and HR, and with the support of my VPs, my manager sent my coming out email to all of my organization of 1800 people. I also posted that same message to my LinkedIn profile. I have received resounding and overwhelming support from all my coworkers, past and present.</p><p>Since that day of coming out in my professional life, I have lived my life as a woman full time. For most of my life I have felt an extreme discomfort with how I looked and was expected to act in public. At times this has lead to some pretty severe depression. I went through my life disconnected and detached from most things that were goin on. I've wished that I was a woman off and on since I was a kid, but that never seemed possible. Going through my life now being treated and referred to as a woman everywhere, and having the physical changes from hormone therapy, my life feels so much more vibrant and real than ever before. I came to realize that this was my true self, that the discomfort I have felt my whole life was because I always was a woman, but had to go through life pretending to be a man. This is the real me. This is my most authentic self.</p><p>Trans Rights are Human Rights</p><p>Protect Trans Kids</p><p>Preserve bodily autonomy for women and all transgender people.</p><p><a href="https://chaosfem.tw/tags/TDOV" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TDOV</span></a> <a href="https://chaosfem.tw/tags/Transgender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Transgender</span></a> <a href="https://chaosfem.tw/tags/TransJoy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TransJoy</span></a></p>