Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Have you changed careers since, during, or right before transition? Or are you going back to school?
If so, do you think it has anything to do with transition?

Is your new profession more readily associated with the gender you transitioned to?
Are you an mtf studying to be a nurse or an ftm majoring in engineering?

Has it always been a passion or dream or has transitioning opened the door to careers you hadn't considered? Do you feel freer to pursue your dreams now that you've transitioned?

After 30 years as a database specialist I am just fed up with it. I want to do something else and in 5 years I will be doing something else. I do not know what, but I have had enough of this.....

I spent my career  as a web developer. After I started to transition I have zero interest in it. I used to be a very accomplished professional and now I prefer to be a stay at home mom.  I'm very blessed to be able to have a situation where that is possible. Having a loving supportive partner and a loving daughter is my dream come true.

In a few years when she is off to collage maybe I will return to work.

I did some paralegal work and some computer consulting before transition, after transition I did some paralegal work and less computer consulting.

Things stayed pretty much the same, I did lose a couple clients after transition, but most of my changes were because of diabetic complications and I could no longer drive an hour and a half to the different client sites.

I started a new job on my first day of transition.I worked as a fork lift truck driver and warehouse clerk as a guy and started work in role as a clerical worker.I have more confidence I'd never have even thought of driving a bus or tram  or managing a guest house as a guy.

ugh. This is one area I dont do so well.
I was a network engineer. It never paid the bills and the headhunters made it impossible to make a living.I always had alot of kids but I only ever squeaked by and never got ahead.
Jobs were never stable. work a contract here for three months look for two work here for 6-8 months then somewhere else.

Believe it or not I'm finding myself wanting to go into food production. Yup...farming.

Seana

After more than 20 years in retail, I am changing to medicine.  In fact I am going into veterinary medicine.

Quote from: Tesla on November 14, 2012, 09:35:16 AM
No. I'm a founder and have shares in the company. Job security is 99.99%. But I have fantasies of becoming a professional musician.

Oh my stars! Me too!

I hope I don't change my mind about my firefighter/paramedic idea. I really don't want to go to college and the job seems to be so fulfilling.  ::)

Quote from: TessaM on November 14, 2012, 08:58:04 AM
Before transition? Smoke weed all day erryday. Sell some. Sell crap you find around the house on craigslist or Kijiji. Occasional odd job for cash. I then got a clerical position at a bank. 90% female. One straight male only lol. Now ive gone back to school. Id like to be a nurse, but that entails 5 more years of schooling for me to accomplish (I want to be the nurse with a uni degree...whatever that one is called). If I dont get into the nursing program (I have very bad marks from my first semester of college that have stayed on my permanent record) im just going to finish my diploma in the social sciences and figure it out from there.

Haha smoke weed and chill. That actually sounds kinda fun. Wish I would have tried that. Dianal don't worry. I think you will love being a fire medic

I know, it's just that a lot of people that know I'm trans think it's weird that I picked a "masculine career option." Speaking of which, what exactly is a "feminine" career path?

Haha DianeP, that's exactly how my Endo put it . He was going over the qualifications HRT . One was "obtain typically female employment. Whatever the hell that is"t was a bright moment for me, so I just had to share.

Seana

Quote from: DianaP on November 16, 2012, 05:32:32 AM
I know, it's just that a lot of people that know I'm trans think it's weird that I picked a "masculine career option." Speaking of which, what exactly is a "feminine" career path?

Homemaker, seamstress, secretary? My brain cells are threatening premature apoptosis simply entertaining it.

Quote from: DianaP on November 14, 2012, 09:09:05 PM
Oh my stars! Me too!

I hope I don't change my mind about my firefighter/paramedic idea. I really don't want to go to college and the job seems to be so fulfilling.  ::)

I'm trying to become a professional musician but I'm learning how to play through studying a form of music that is not only dominated by people who are men but by people who also often have a macho mentality and until the last decade or two mainly thought women couldn't play as well unless they were singers. :-\ And a lot of people still think this.

Don't worry though, I'm planning to eventually focus on a style that is even more dominated by men with the macho mentality. *sigh* Not sure how being trans will go over but each decade it seems more like something a trans woman could do so I intend to try. Of course I still need to learn to play well.

I'm jealous of people who get to work in a "female environment" without giving up on their goals. If I end up working part time long term maybe my part time job can be like that.

So far my transition has led to nothing but long term unemployment.  I work in a small public service profession.  The governments cuts have caused a complete dearth of vacancies and despite a couple of interviews I have got nowhere.  I know the law says that employers are meant to ignore gender varience but in practice, being trans is enough reason not to get the job.

I'll keep plugging away but I am not far off bankruptcy at the moment.

I don't see a change in careers coming in my immediate future.  I still fancy the idea of being a Senator someday though. And I still like the idea of retiring as Secetary of Transportation.

I do see transition as necessary for me to move on no matter what I end up doing.  I was self-destructing due to poor work/life balance and permanent anger that my carreer paths were dwindling just because I was becoming such an nasty person to be around.  I'm just at the start of my transition but a lot has already snapped into perspective.

My career choice has not changed. I was an engineer before transition, and I am still an engineer during. But, it is not my dream to be an engineer for the rest of my career. I am only doing this until I can get my degree and follow my true passion. Being an engineer is just easy and it pays good. I find it dull as it does not take me much effort to do the work.

No change from before to after, but it is coming.

For the longest time (28 years), I had the hardest time deciding what I wanted to do when I grow up. Since I had long term amnesia about who I was and where I had been, I just didn't know. My gut was no help, it was crazy. Whenever I asked, "what do I want to be when I grow up?" it's answer was always "a happy woman." If I ever got past that, I had mad, grandiose plans (strangely detailed with sensible doable steps for each progression along the way) that I couldn't believe in because as a hollow sham person (a human Sham-wow!) I knew I would always fail if I did something that was attention getting and pride-ish.

Just like my love relationships, my working relationships tended to follow a pattern of me stumbling into someone who seemed to tolerate and like me, me sticking like one of those little burrs that stick to your sock when you are hiking, and then adapting myself to meet their every need while disappearing from view as an individual. It was safer that way-- I didn't really like myself very much so I was always trying to prove that I was essential and shouldn't be discarded.

I've been at my current company for 10 years, filling gaps that would stop the company if they were ignored, and staying invisible except to my immediate supervisors.

Since I transitioned over the past year, I've done better at work because I am much better able to manage the expectations of others, who were perpetually disappointed, since I would be doing the work of 7 people, but would have committed to do the work of 9. Now I still can't help doing the work of 7 people, because this stuff would be so boring if I didn't challenge myself somehow, but I promise 6, not 9.

I wrote a poem about my career feelings and how its tangled up with all my other life transitions that are unfolding simultaneously. I know - the word poem and the word career in the same line? But I was a liberal arts major in college.

Quote from: MadelineB on October 14, 2012, 03:05:22 PM
from CAREER to CAREEN in one letter
or: twitching to escape from one straitjacket more

career  ||  a wall that I stare at from the wrong side

how may I alter this particular noun
to make it into the verb that I need?
before my need avalanches me?

how does one transform
a fixed path that no longer fits.....

follow the 'quote from' link to read the whole thing (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=128272.0).

In therapy two weeks ago I finally retired from the rescue business.
When my therapist asked me the question I would not have been able to answer before: "Ask your whole being, what do you want to do with all of your energy that you have been dedicating to rescue operations all of these years?" it only took a minute of meditation to clearly form the answer "I want through my work to unleash the creativity and power of young people, who are our future."

So I know my next career, a true vocation for me. Now its just details for getting there.