Despite having worked at DAC Beachcroft in the U.K. for 15 years, Amanda Hilton first entered the DAC Beachcroft Manchester office as her full self just four months ago.

Amanda, a chartered legal executive, had spent most of last year adopting her true gender identity and transitioned to living as a woman full-time in February.

Amanda says that the decision did not fill her with fear, but rather a sense of serenity — now, she says, she can finally be herself.

She says was around eight years old when she "first got an inkling that I wasn't in the body I should have been in". But growing up in the industrial, predominantly working-class town of Widnes near Liverpool, where her father worked for the post office and her mother was a school dinner lady, Amanda had no access to support networks to talk about how she was feeling.

Those feelings of gender uncertainty lasted well into her teenage years and her time at university.  At that point, she says, she made a key decision — she wouldn't be opening up about her true identity any time soon. A few years later, she got married to her now-ex-wife and raised a family.

"I took the easy route which was just to conform," she says now. "It's just so much easier to forget those feelings are even inside of you."

But around three years ago, as her marriage fell apart, Amanda decided that enough was enough. "It was at that time where I wondered whether I should continue living a lie, or make a change." Since then, she says, "I've been embracing the new me".

At the end of last year, Amanda spoke with her managers at DAC Beachcroft about her decision to transition, and says the process had been a smooth one. Opening up to friends and her employer using a "staggered approach" across several months was helpful, Amanda says, and one that she would recommend to others seeking to 'come out' as transgender at work.

Her first day at work as Amanda was highly emotional. "I nearly cried twice," she says. "My immediate team gave me a card with a bottle of champagne, which nearly made me burst into tears at my desk. Then later that day our firm's LGBT group sent me flowers.

"There were nerves, of course, there were bound to be, but they were not as bad as I'd feared. It was all very normal — apart from the blubbing episodes."

The lockdown has been a "frustrating" setback for her confidence levels, she says. Around just  eight weeks after first officially entering the office as Amanda, remote working became the norm.

"I was starting to build confidence in my identity. You can be the most confident person in the world but if someone gives you a funny look, it knocks you. You need to grow a second, third, fourth skin when it comes to that kind of thing."

But having recently moved homes to a new neighbourhood, Amanda adds that the isolation of lockdown has also given her time to breathe and assess her feelings. She has also recently approached gender therapy specialists about a medical transition.

Her next priorities, she says, are to try and get out and about again as normal as U.K. lockdown restrictions begin to ease. "I'm going to hit the shops next weekend and see a little more of the world," she says. "A sense of normality again would be nice."

"Normality is just so key to me and a lot of people who are trans. We just want to live our lives, this is not a superficial thing. And now I've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

The firm's senior partner, Virginia Clegg, added in a statement: "Amanda very bravely shared her experiences in our Transgender lunch and learn sessions, which were held across a number of our U.K. offices and which enabled DAC Beachcroft colleagues to better understand her personal journey, and to raise awareness of the challenges faced by transgender men and women. As a firm we pride ourselves on being approachable, open minded and inclusive and we are very grateful to Amanda for sharing her knowledge and insights with us. It has been a privilege to support Amanda on her journey."

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