Tag: #trans

  • OUTstanding Future Leaders Role Model 2025 on YouTube

    Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, to INvolve – The Inclusion People and YouTube for their support and recognition. I am so delighted and grateful to be featured within the 2025 Outstanding Role Model Lists!  Growing up silent and silenced, with no support from anyone… trying to survive somehow… often considering suicide……

  • OUTstanding Future Leaders Role Model List 2025

    I am so delighted and grateful to be featured within the 2025 Outstanding Role Model Lists supported by YouTube! A second time, and this time even amongst the Top 20. I am truly proud and humbled by this result and experience.  These global Outstanding Lists by INvolve – The Inclusion People champion trailblazers across businesses who are…

  • The Essence of Being Human

    Yesterday at the INvolve awards ceremony and gala dinner in the Natural History Museum in London. Quite the life experience and also, after the last few – rather depressing political weeks – it was simply lovely to be in  a hall full of people who understand that diversity is not a trend or something to…

  • OUTstanding Future Leaders Role Model on YouTube

    What an honor! Thank you so much INvolve – The Inclusion People and YouTube. Thank you for supporting us all in making a difference and for making an enormous difference yourselves!       

  • OUTstanding Future Leaders Role Model List 2024

    Very happy, honored, and humbled to have made it onto this list! https://outstanding.involverolemodels.org/poll/2024-top-100-future-leaders Thank you so much to everyone who nominated and selected me. It is an enormous honor and a milestone I will never forget. Thank you for all you do for diversity, equity, and inclusion dear Involve and YouTube!       

  • UNPINKED 2024

    On Friday the 13th, 2024 , I had the pleasure of speaking at the #UNPINKED conference in Berlin on the subject of “Working Around the Globe as a Trans Man – Challenges and Surprises.” A big thank you to the fabulous UHLALA Group for putting together such a diverse and interesting program of presentations and…

  • 30 Years Zurich Pride

    At the Zurich Pride Parade with BCG and GetConnected last Saturday, celebrating humanity, DE&I, and the parade’s 30ieth anniversary. There are not enough words to describe how happy I was. 75’000 people were celebrating the amazing diverse human beings they are this year at our parade. It was my very first time being on a…

  • Let’s Not Forget

    I transitioned 30 years ago. Back then, even in Central Europe, this still meant that your professional life basically came to an end. All of a sudden, no one wanted to employ you anymore. Thus, many transgender individuals often had only one option remaining open to them: prostitution.  I was lucky and this never happened…

  • Trans and gender non-conforming individuals at the workplace

    Delighted to share a research that I undertook with colleagues at @BostonConsultingGroup has been published in the Sep-Oct Issue of Harvard Business Review (‘HBR’)! Earlier this year, our report on the experience of trans and gender non-conforming individuals (‘TGNC’) at the workplace spanning 8 countries was published online on HBR. The research uncovered some rather…

  • A Long and Painful Journey of Growth and Discovery

    I’ve always had to battle challenges and adversity far larger than being transgender. In this blog post, let’s focus on the transgender part of my story… I was born in 1971 and grew up in a time, a conservative geographic region, and surrounded by people who never asked me why I was so unhappy and hid away…

  • On Stage with Kurt Aeschbacher at Haebse in Basel

    For a second time, I had the pleasure to be invited as a guest to Kurt Aeschbacher’s talk show. This time not on television but life on stage at the Kulturhaus Haebse in Basel. It’s been – once again – a special honor and precious life experience, whilst at the same time also an opportunity…

  • Come see me on stage in Basel on April 16th

    On Sunday, April 16, 2023, come see me on stage in Basel, Switzerland. I will be one of four guests of Swiss talk show legend Kurt Aeschbacher. And he will surely have an amazing conversation with each of us. For 30 years, Kurt Aeschbacher had his own talk show on Swiss TV. Now he is…

  • The Amazing Zurich PRIDE Parade

    Yesterday, on June 18th, 2022, the annual Zurich PRIDE parade took place in the center of town. It was the first parade after the pandemic. And it was fabulous in so many ways… let me tell you more… Arriving at the meeting point, I already thought, “Oh, there are way more people here than in the…

  • Thanks to UBS Pride Switzerland

    I gave a presentation yesterday evening on my life journey and being transgender. We’re the sum of our experiences. The audience was wonderful, attentive, and engaged. A flood of questions after my talk. Great, in-depth conversations afterwards in the bar. Thanks so much to UBS Pride Switzerland for hosting this event!       

  • Which Way To Go…

    I’d love to hear your honest opinion: While writing the first draft of my second book, it’s becoming clear that I need to make a decision whether it should include me as a character or not. As you might know already, the book will be a collection of stories about the animal companions I’ve shared…

  • Trust Your Children

    Two of the most common questions people ask me are: “When did you know?” and “How did you know?” In a way, I always knew. Even as a three-year old child I instinctively thought of myself as male. My body was female, but I knew I was a boy. This was no clearly defined thought…

  • We’re All Human

    Today, as every year on the 20ieth of November we remember all those who have been killed because of their gender identity. Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. The sheer numbers of those killed in the most barbaric ways are staggering and break my heart. This year it is 325 individuals that we know of…

  • No Limits

    25 years ago, when I had my gender reassignment surgeries, I vowed to never let this important decision of aligning my soul with my body hamper or limit me in any way. I was going to continue going after my dreams. And I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Part of this meant to be…

  • Seeing More Clearly

    From 2005 to 2009, I divided my time between serving customers at the dive center and guiding them in the Big Blue. Being back in central Europe at the moment, I know more than ever that life is infinitely better the more ocean I have around me. Things shift back into perspective. And I am…

  • The Perfect Moment

    The perfect moment. Sunshine. A group of delighted scuba divers whom I had guided throughout the morning. Jackfish. Chilli Sauce. Sand as soft a velvet. Palm Trees. A blazing azure sky and turquoise sea all around us. I enjoyed myself. Enjoyed to guide, coach, and drink in our surroundings with all my senses. It didn’t…

  • What Would an Ocean Be…

    “What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.” by Werner Herzog is the quote I chose for the beginning of Paralian. Because this is life. No matter what our backgrounds. There is no sleep without dreams. No growth without challenge. No clarity without ambivalence.…

  • Whatever

    I continue to be amused as well as annoyed (and sometimes a bit alarmed) by the endless gender bathroom debates. I am female-to-male transgender. When I was four years old, I knew I was a boy. Being born in a girl’s body, my parents kept sending me to bathrooms assigned to female gender even though…

  • I Hope, Deep Down You Knew

    Uniting my body with my soul meant breaking the heart of the one person who had always been there for me – my oma (grandma). As the hormones took an ever-firmer hold, I tried explaining to her who I was. Unfortunately, she was becoming progressively more senile. Oma sadly asked for me. Countless times, she…

  • The Sparkling Rainbow of Creation

    LGBT, trans, and whatever shade in between, we’ve always been around. Be it amongst humans or within the plant and animal kingdom. Just another bunch of colors in the sparkling rainbow of creation. ”Oddly, humans are not the only animals that engage in cross-dressing or have transgender identity issues; a lot of animals also have…

  • Summer Reading

    ‘What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.’ Werner Herzog       

  • You Always Can – A Story of Coming Home to Myself

    Just put this story on Bored Panda. Have a look at the actual Bored Panda page here and please upvote, like and share as much as you can all over social media. Thanks! I have always been drawn to water. Any body of water. Oceans mostly. Wanted to immerse myself. Dive in. Explore and discover. But,…

  • Help Me Reach The Front Page!

    Look at what Bored Panda just sent me, dear friends and supporters!!! Can we try together and create one more large wave of shares of this link please? Please take a minute to go there, SHARE on your social media pages, and click the “UP-VOTE” arrow! We’re only a couple thousand k views and a…