Which aspects of your life have better prepared you for this big step?

[Sincerely Tegan]

So, I am still early in my transition. However, it is already clear to me that there are certain skills that I have learned in my life through various jobs, experiences, and tasks that have better prepared me to more confidently enter this stage of my life. Through my work experience I have gained valuable tools that will make me more prepared to deal with the stresses and anxieties that transitioning life might throw my way.

I started life as a very shy and unconfident person; this only got worse as I entered my teen years. Around this time, though, I also began working. Customer service requires you to not only deal with all kinds of people, but to do so confidently, a skill that I learned over the course of a dozen or so crap jobs over the years. Being an educator these days, I have had to learn an even greater sense of diplomacy, removing my ego from situations in order to maintain control and keep the peace.

I am no longer that shy and unassertive person I was half a lifetime ago, and I can thank my work experience a great deal for that. I would imagine that the confidence, empathy, and ability to remove myself from a situation (framing it in healthier and less personal ways) will be invaluable as I step into the unknown.

How many of you feel that your prior experiences will act as training for what is to come in your transition?

Cheers,
Tegan

[Lostkitten]

Eventually I learned I am good at being creative, could turn my job into that and that the way you look/behave/act/feel has all to do with creativity. To me the main focus of my transition has never been about changing as a person from the inside but how to develop my creativity on the outside. Sounds funny maybe but it is how it worked for me . The better I gotten at the job and the more confident I gained, the smoother my transition went also.

[suzifrommd]

Being trained as an engineer really helped. I treated my transition as a project, where I prioritized tasks, assessed risks and analyzed results to find out how my presentation could be improved.

[Rachel]

I am a Licensed Engineer, run projects, physical plants, have 30 staff (operating engineers) and do presentations to our department, senior leadership and at conventions. I also present, project manage and operate very creative energy saving projects.

Prior to telling my boss I am trans and everything else about myself, he had a professional development plan made for me by an outsourced psychologist. Basically I had 4 things that I dread and fear most I had to overcome and measure progress against a goal and it was part of my evaluation. One item was presentations. I took professional presentation courses and now can make and present professionally to large audiences.  I am presenting at a national convention in March.

I was in an auditorium today where I must do a presentation to leadership in January or February. I was looking at the organizations leadership of which 90% are female and looking at their cloths and imagining myself presenting expressing. I really think I can do it. At first I thought I can do it only if I get FFS then I  thought if I can not get FFS can I do it. I just do not know, maybe. Then I thought they will know either way so perhaps I could either way but looking better would definitely help me be more at ease.