Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabrielle Claiborne.
Gabrielle, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
From a very young age, being assigned male at birth, I knew I was different but didn’t have the words to understand the internal gender dilemma I was experiencing. Consequently, I spent much of my life living in accordance to cultural standards of what was expected of a heterosexual, white male. I was a good student and a talented athlete. I married a beautiful, loving wife and had three amazing and talented children. I had a successful career owning multiple businesses in the construction industry. To top it all off, I was a leader in a large prestigious Atlanta church. By all outward appearances, I had it all. In reality, I was living a life of turmoil because I had not yet to come to terms with my true story.
It wasn’t until after experiencing a life changing event eight years ago, that I finally embraced my truth as a transgender woman; someone that I had always known and felt myself to be, but now had the words and personal experience to comprehend this. It was then I found myself at a local Atlanta dressing service, standing in front of the mirror completely dressed in my true female gender expression, and my heart realizing, “That is me!” I was 49 years and meeting myself for the very first time!
Experiencing this new awareness set me on a journey of finding my story as my true self, and I quickly learned that loving myself through the process would be the most important and bravest thing I could do. You see, as I and many of my trans siblings set out to find our stories, we risk losing the basic human essentials that humankind needs to flourish, much less to survive. Essentials such as affordable housing, respectful healthcare, adequate paying vocations, accepting and loving family and friends, and welcoming spiritual communities just to name a few. So, without a grounded sense of self-love and self-acceptance, the odds of weathering through the pushback that many of us experience in these areas would be dismal.
For me, coming to terms with my relationship with God was one such risk. You see, I’m a 5th generation, Pentecostal, preacher’s kid. Because I was raised in this conservative, spiritual environment, my relationship with God has always been essential to my well-being. Upon my announcement of being transgender to my family and faith community, I was accused of turning my back on God. It wasn’t until after many sleepless nights, wrestling with what I was taught about who God is, that I came to a new awakening. I did not choose to be transgender. God established that reality for me. Consequently, I realized that God is much bigger than my gender identity, God can handle this, and I, Gabrielle, am pleasing to God. This has set me on a course of redefining my spiritual relationship with God, and with the support of a welcoming spiritual community, that is continuing to unfold today.
Notwithstanding the challenges around my spiritual journey, coming out to my family has been the most difficult part of my journey. In hindsight, I’ll be the first to tell you that I made mistakes along the way. None the less, I did the best that I could do with the knowledge that I had while facing fears of rejection and separation. As this aspect of my story unfolded, the reactions were mixed. Today, my family and I have navigated through many painful and hard conversations while celebrating various monumental victories. Our relationships as we once knew them have changed form, and we continue to define what they are today. Along the way, I’ve realized that as much as this is my journey, it is as much theirs as well. Through this process, I’ve learned the importance of holding space, allowing them time and space to navigate through their own personal journeys with my true gender identity without forcing inconsiderate and unrealistic expectations on them.
Having owned my story and found my voice as a transgender woman, I’ve come to understand that my story continues to evolve. While its current form (as is the case with all of our stories) is defined by the degree of my commitment and courage to personal honesty, it doesn’t define my totality. Consequently, I continue to rumble with my story, owning my truth in every area of my life to write a new and more courageous ending. I strive to remember that, despite the journey being long and difficult at times, it is the incremental evolutionary changes that occur, as I experience moments of falling down and getting back up, that ultimately lead to a revolutionary path of living a more wholehearted life.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely not! My vocational journey was also a major challenge. After experiencing that life changing moment 8 years ago when I met my “true” self for the very first time, I spent the next two years living back and forth between my male persona and my true female gender identity. It wasn’t until after a number, of what I now know were Divine invitations, did I finally make the decision to live my life fully as the transgender woman I knew myself to be. This decision was a critical turning point in my life because I could have just as easily stayed the course and remained miserable and disillusioned over what I perceived to be unfathomable risks. What I have since learned is, these perceived risks, i.e. losing family, being jobless, being homeless, not belonging to a spiritual community, etc., were far less risky than the threat of never experiencing my true self.
Consequently, I set me on the journey of coming out to my family. This resulted in them having to process all of what I had been going through over the past 40 years, in their own space, per their own time table, thus creating a season of my having little or no connection to them. I also found myself homeless, living on a friend’s sofa, while grappling with my survival. To exacerbate my current situation, I lost my job. What little financial reserve I had was gone, and I was now faced with the fear of having no income. Putting my fears into perspective, back in 2012, most Americans knew nothing about the transgender experience. So, the thought of being able to enter the workplace as a 6 foot 3 trans woman was very, very scary.
But the pastor at a trans welcoming church I had started attending encouraged me to find something I knew how to do and do it. Since I knew how to start a business, I felt the only way for me to survive vocationally was to build on my past entrepreneurial experience and do just that. So, six years ago, I started a cleaning company. Over the next five years, I built this company from having one client every two weeks, to having multiple clients every day. This experience not only provided a living for me and my employees, it also taught me how to embrace my truth on a whole new level. I learned how to be a female business owner. The way I conducted business changed from the days of old. While I was always mindful of the bottom line, I now found ways to leverage the business to help others, to provide employment opportunities for transgender individuals. But it didn’t stop there. As my staff provided services for our clients, the clients were being educated about transgender people. Clients quickly realized, we are no different than they are. We have families, friends and jobs just like they do. We too belong…or want to belong…to a spiritual community. We experience life in much the same way they do. In time, our clients understanding of what was “normal,” regarding gender, expanded greatly.
Six months ago, I sold this business to one of my transgender employees. Now, she too is a female business owner. Little did I know things would work out this way six years ago when I was struggling with my own vocational truth. It gives me great joy to know that as I embraced my vocational truth, I not only survived, prospered and flourished vocationally, but I was also able to “pay it forward” and touch people’s lives, creating a ripple along the way.
As I shared in my personal story, my vocational journey continues to evolve to the degree of my commitment and courage to personal honesty. While my cleaning business served me well during that season of my life, my heart’s desire regarding how I show up in the world vocationally has continued to unfold.
Three years ago, I co-founded Transformation Journeys Worldwide, a diversity training and consulting firm with a transgender focus. I am now showing up in spaces that I once occupied as a male, educating organizations on ways to make themselves trans inclusive. There’s a saying, “if you do what you love, you’ll love what you do.” You might be saying, “Gabrielle…duh?!!” The reality is, there are many people who are feeling stuck in their jobs, not loving what they do. And they have a thousand reasons why they choose to remain stuck, many of which I’ve used many times over again. But there’s one thing I’ve learned in my vocational journey, and that is, it’s never too late to do what you love! In fact, I have found that, as I remain intentional in taking steps in the direction my heart’s desires, the Universe conspires on my behalf. I can personally attest to the fact that there’s no better place to be than “in the flow!”
Please tell us about Transformation Journeys Worldwide.
I am co-founder and managing partner of Transformation Journeys Worldwide. We are a cutting-edge, transgender focused, diversity training and consulting firm. Our passion is teaching businesses, corporations, religious and civic organizations, schools, educational institutions and healthcare providers what you need to know to work effectively with transgender patients, customers, colleagues, congregants and kids. Our diversity trainings, staff developments and presentations give organizations the tools they need to create a respectful, empowering space for all gender identities and expressions. At Transformation Journeys we believe that, when all people are respected and empowered, we all win–and our world becomes a better place.
What I’m most proud of is the change we are making in organizations nationally and internationally. We’re paving the way for transgender and non-binary individuals to have the opportunity to show up in the workplace, and be valued for bringing their gifts, abilities and expertise to the conversation, thus creating a more diverse, innovative, competitive and profitable organization.
One thing that sets us apart from others is our customized trainings and consultations. Before we engage with a client, we perform a needs analysis, assessing where the client is in their understanding of transgender and non-binary people. From this, we create trainings and consultations to target and meet their specific needs
Another thing that sets us apart is how we weave personal stories into our trainings. There is power in storytelling. When our audiences hear personal accounts from transgender and non-binary individuals, this immediately creates an empathetic connection, enabling them to see that these gender diverse individuals are just another expression of the beautiful human experience.
Yet another thing that makes our trainings and consultations unique is the strategic perspective from which we deliver our message. While it is critical to have my trans voice in the room to ensure authenticity, we intentionally include my business partner’s cisgender voice, as well. Cisgender describes people whose gender identity (who one knows oneself to be, whether male, female, a combination of both, or maybe neither) coincides with the gender they were assigned at birth. Because the majority of our clients identify as cisgender, including a cisgender voice assures our audiences that they too can embrace the ever-evolving dynamics of gender.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
One lesson I’ve learned is to embrace the journey, whatever it may look like. What I’ve learned is while I am deliberate and strategic in setting goals for myself…which is a good thing by the way…I have to embrace the process, recognizing the achievement of my goals may come by different paths and at different rates.
None the less, I am to honor the journey regardless of how I may feel, what I may or may not see, how long it may take, the perceived risks I may experience or how situations may change form. I have realized that today’s decisions determine tomorrow’s outcomes, and I cannot experience tomorrow without living today. At the end of the day, I have realized that it is the sum of “living in each now” that manifests my goals in their perfect and intended form.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TransformationJourneysWW.com
- Email: Garbrielle@TransformationJourneysWW.com
- Instagram: @TransformatinJourneysWW
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Transformation-Journeys-Worldwide-890182184369847/
- Twitter: @TransformJourny
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielle-claiborne-36311363/
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