ALL POSTS BY: Dani Piergallini

Editors’ note: It is common for students to attend business school for the purpose of making a major career change, and there are myriad programs and support staff in place to help facilitate this sort of transition. But a second year at Owen, Danielle Piergallini, is undergoing a much more profound change. OwenBloggers is proud to present the first in a series of lifestyle pieces written by Danielle chronicling her experience as a transgender student at a major American business school.

It started with a long, uphill walk under the glare of the late morning Atlanta sun. Wearing a black suit might have been a mistake, especially since it was unseasonably hot for the end of March. But the heat wasn’t why I was moving slower than molasses – I was walking in three-inch heels to the hotel where I’d interview as female for the first time. This was the only interview attire I’d brought with me since I didn’t want to give myself the option to chicken out, and I was starting to question whether that was the right decision.

Editors’ note: It is common for students to attend business school for the purpose of making a major career change, and there are myriad programs and support staff in place to help facilitate this sort of transition. But a second year at Owen, Danielle Piergallini, is undergoing a much more profound change. OwenBloggers is proud to present the first in a series of lifestyle pieces written by Danielle chronicling her experience as a transgender student at a major American business school.

One of the things that surprised me about business school is how applicable a lot of the frameworks we’ve learned are in unpacking and processing a lot of things related to transition. For example, lately I’ve felt that people (mostly strangers) seem to look and/or stare at me a lot more than they did before. Instead of the socially acceptable “I’m going to look at you and then look away,” I get something more along the lines of, ‘wait, what?’ that comes with an apparently instinctive second look that… nags at me. I usually assume it is because they can’t figure out my gender, which surprises/bothers them so much that they briefly forget how their mamas raised them – but being kind of nerdy, I try to figure out what’s going on.

Editors’ note: It is common for students to attend business school for the purpose of making a major career change, and there are myriad programs and support staff in place to help facilitate this sort of transition. But a second year at Owen, Danielle Piergallini, is undergoing a much more profound change. OwenBloggers is proud to present the first in a series of lifestyle pieces written by Danielle chronicling her experience as a transgender student at a major American business school.

Door number one is safe. It’s comfortable. You’ve opened it all your life, and people have even been nice enough to hold it open for you. It’s the door to the house you grew up in, the one that feels so familiar every time you step inside, especially those times when you return after being gone a little too long. Yet despite that – you’ve always wanted to crack open door number two and peek inside. It’s the door they steered you away from time after time. It’s at the end of a long, dark hallway. It’s locked. If you open that door, people will scream at you (if you’re lucky).

Editors’ note: It is common for students to attend business school for the purpose of making a major career change, and there are myriad programs and support staff in place to help facilitate this sort of transition. But a second year at Owen, Danielle Piergallini, is undergoing a much more profound change. OwenBloggers is proud to present a series of lifestyle pieces written by Danielle chronicling her experience as a transgender student at a major American business school.

In my previous post, I talked about the decision surrounding when to come out. Once I settled on doing it before the end of Year 1, the how (or logistics, for you non-operations types) became the anxiety-inducing question of the moment. I thought it’d be best to wait until after I received my first internship offer to avoid as many distractions as possible. The method of delivery would be email, because even though face-to-face conversation certainly has its benefits, it isn’t a very practical way to come out to more than 100 classmates. Writing “the letter” is almost a rite of passage in the trans experience, and I only had a limited amount of time to figure out what should it say as Year 1 would end in about a month.