My year in 2024

It’s January 6th, so I’m already into the new year and work begins again today. Time to reflect on 2024 and look forward to 2025.

Before I do that, I want to start with celebrating Zandra Moore MBE being awarded an MBE for her recognized commitment to gender equality. For those who do not know what an MBE is, it is a public, lifelong honor granted to people for notable accomplishments that better the lives of people in the UK.

I have known Zandra since we started working together on convincing an agency of the UK government to improve the process and increase the funding given to female founders of business. More on that later. In the course of these past months I saw what a truly good person Zandra is. I’m really honored to know her and count her as a good friend, and I’m delighted she had been awarded her MBE, which is fully earned and deserved.

Now for my year. I have learned so much about so much!

I have fully transitioned to be the woman I always was. As many of you know, I was assigned male at birth (AMAB). It has taken me a very long time to unwind the consequences of what that meant; now it is done.?

I formally and legally changed my name last February, received the document from my doctor confirming my true gender identity in May, by July had my new passport with my name and gender/sex both set aright, and my driving license renewed by September.

I have not stopped smiling these last fifteen months. I eventually stopped blubbering with joy every day; since then tears well up from time to time, when my emotions overcome me. I’m a teenager going through menopause, as Sharon Boyes-Schiller tells it. Totally true!

My body continues to change to match my identity. I’m short one item of surgery but I will have to be patient quite some time yet as having that is a question of money, not will.? Totally unexpected: thanks to the hormones I get periods. Not all of what that means, obviously, but the brain fog, the mood swings, all that - plus physical manifestation with discoloration and raised bumps on my face. These past five months I’m working on my voice; its not perfect but it’s good enough to ensure I am no longer misgendered, thank goodness.

The most amazing thing is what has happened to how I think. It’s not simply being more aware of my emotions and how I relate to the world around me; my brain has been rewired. I react to things much more immediately than ever I did. I have always been empathetic; now this is so much more heightened, classically described as thinking as a woman (I really don’t like the binary-ness lying within that statement). To give you an idea, it’s the difference between being the ‘white knight’ I thought I was, and the realization its actually my mothering instinct kicking in (https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15KS2A2r2D/).? One of key moments was when, about three months ago, I began to dream as me, not as my earlier self. More and more now I dream as me; only when under stress do I revert, or more oddly have no identity. Next up is to align my inner voice!

Work this past year has been amazing! In January my first challenge was to represent Silent Sensors at a business event where many knew me in my earlier self. My big fear was to damage our business by showing up as me. Everyone I knew was simply happy that I was happy, and from that moment in public life I have never looked back. Indeed everyone I have met socially, when networking and in business generally have, without exception, simply accepted me for being me.? ?I have Emmie Faust, Tara Attfield-Tomes, Valeen Oseh-Ovarah, CSPO abd Johanne Hedges to thank for that. Most importantly, I have been made to feel I belong, something I never truly felt before.

Thanks to an incredible series of unexpected coincidences, by December I had become a national advocate for female founders and women led businesses, presenting in person the results and recommendations of surveys that female founder networks had put together to the CEO of Innovate UK. This is a government agency, responsible for awarding some ￡1bn in grants. Together with other businesswomen like Zandra, I am encouraging and exhorting the agency to both improve its internal processes and seek more funding opportunities for female founders to ‘level the field’ vis-a-vis male led businesses. Let’s see what happens in 2025!

I am become who I always was, and far far better than ever I was. No excuses, no explanations needed.

Along the way I have made so many new, dear friends. As they got to know me, and my history, they gave me insights I had not considered.? The one that hit me most was when Catherine Ann Reid said to me one day not so long ago “Carla, you have found your tribe”.

The moment she said that I sat down and cried my eyes out a full half hour (and I’m tearing up I write this) because this explained so much the moment I understood its significance.?I never ever belonged to male tribes/clubs because never in my life could I relate to either the purpose or the dynamics of them. Indeed, because of my background, upbringing and experiences, I always thought of myself as the ‘observer’, standing to one side and looking in, wanting to belong but not to that. Clearly I could not belong to any female tribe/club because, while the empathy was there, I still did not understand my own identity, and anyway I presented as male, so forget it.? Only when I became my real self: invited, welcomed and accepted for who I am, could I belong to anything I could truly relate to. Now, finally, after all these years spent solo, I can. I have indeed found my tribe, and it is so precious to me.

Along the way I have gained several sisters (I love you!!), lost a brother (he will neither see me nor hear me) and, I hope, found another level of relationship with my long-separated-from-thanks-to-me wife who I always love, this after some really difficult days at Christmastime. The very last day of the year, and a couple of times since, she has called me by my chosen name. Very little step by very little step, maybe one day she will find comfort in knowing the good in me is better.

I am blown away by all that has happened this past year. Everything is so much more than I ever thought possible. I have discovered who I really am, which I consider to be a special gift given me for all the years of wandering and wondering.

For the time that remains to me I will always be true to who I am, what I can do with that, and how I can be everyone’s favorite auntie!

I have not been so happy in all my life as I have been this past year. If 2025 is only half as good as 2024, then it will still be amazing!

A very happy and prosperous 2025 to you all!

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