Starting Life With a Clean Slate: Transgender Woman Starting a New Job

Abstract

Kylie stared at the computer screen, feeling the panic rise inside her as she read and reread the e-mail. It was April of her senior year, and she had already secured her dream job with a Fortune 500 company. Just weeks after graduation, movers would arrive in her small college town in the Midwest and move her belongings to a tiny apartment in St. Louis, where she was scheduled to start an intensive management training program on June 1. She had interviewed with the representatives on campus and been flown out for an exhausting but exciting 2 days of onsite interviews and accepted their job offer without hesitation a few days later. She could not wait to be starting life with a clean slate.

Shortly after arriving on campus as Kyle 4 years ago, she began undergoing the process of gender transition. Even as a young child, Kylie had felt deep down that she was a girl. With the support of the LGBTQ+ student group and its faculty advisor, she began to more boldly and outwardly embrace a feminine identity during freshman year. With the assistance of the residence life staff, she moved into a co-ed dorm and lived as a woman. She also obtained a referral to a trans-specializing doctor from student health so she could start taking hormones. Kylie’s parents had a hard time with it at first, but they were doing their best to be accepting and loving toward their child who now wanted to be their daughter. During the summer between junior and senior year, Kylie had her first gender-reassignment surgery, and 3 months ago, she completed the legal paperwork necessary to become officially female in the eyes of the government.