Claire Hall was born and grew up in a large city on the left coast and has spent most of her adult years in a beautiful small coastal community where she's now an elected official in local government after spending many years as a newspaper and radio reporter. In her space time she loves reading, writing fiction (her first novel was published by a regional press a couple of years ago), watching classic Hollywood movies, and walking.
Does transgender advocacy and a greater awareness of the existence of trans people help or cause more problems? That’s the question Claire Hall asks. First trans people were attacked with bathroom bills. Then the attacks shifted to banning trans women from sports. Find out how Claire answers the question.
Claire Hall spent 58 years presenting to the world as a male. When she reached a certain point and could no longer live the lie she came out and transitioned. That was many months before the pandemic arrived and leaving the lie behind felt wonderful for almost a year. But then COVID struck and that along with other issues sent her into a tailspin. Today Claire talks about healing and how it isn’t a linear process.
If no one sees trans people out and about, participating in our culture, they won’t spend much time trying to guarantee that trans people will have all of their rights. That means that spotting a trans person in public, in a television show or film, or at a favorite dining spot should not be a rare occurrence. Claire Hall writes about representation.
Claire Hall is happy for the attention trans people are getting for stepping up to run for public offices around the country. Transgender representation is important. Especially if it leads to a world where LGBTQ+ people serving in public offices is not something extraordinary but commonplace.
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists maintain that it is impossible for someone born with a male body to be a woman. They cite “socialization” as the reason no male could ever be truly feminine. To them males are socialized as male and that can never be changed. Claire Hall looks at their conclusion and has some comments based on personal experience.
Claire Hall is a big Star Trek fan going all the way back to the original series. But some aspects of the original shows don’t hold up well. One episodes in particular bothers Claire. It’s the one were a female scientist uses a device she has found to switch bodies with Captain Kirk. Read on as Claire boldly goes where she’s been before but now sees the misogyny of Turnabout Intruder.
While Claire Hall found a bit of inspiration when Caitlyn Jenner came out to the world as a trans woman some of the things she did after she transitioned were upsetting. Claire blogs about how she feels regarding Ms. Jenner in today’s Hello World!
Claire Hall knew that the number of transgender people who contemplate suicide is as high as 90 percent. She thought she would be one of the ones in the 10%. And that was true for a good while. Then pressures from her job, tension caused by the pandemic, and personal troubles like a car that died suddenly all conspired to send her to the the ER, and then into counseling for depression that had paved the way for suicidal thoughts.
Trans women long to have bodies that fit them and that means they want to have breasts. Very often HRT produces lovely results, depending on their genetic heritage. Others feel they need to enhance what they’ve grown and opt for implants. In either case, as long as HRT is going on it’s important to take care of you new breasts. Especially if breast cancer runs in your family. Claire Hall recently went in for her first mammogram and in this blog she shares what that experience was like.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Don’t judge a book by its cover, and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Claire Hall has been the victim of name calling and allegations that she is only concerned with the trappings of womanhood. The glamorous surface of perfect hair and makeup. The meanness didn’t hurt her, it made her realize that she knows who she is and the surface is just one part of her whole self.
While Claire Hall is normally an optimistic person a few weeks ago she found herself sliding to the dark side. Various things triggered her into a funk over how long she took to finally admit she had to embrace being a woman. Today she writes about how she came back from that dark place.
When Claire Hall heard about the #nowandthenchallenge she gave in and decided to share the enormous change she went through from 2000 to 2021. In 2000 she was bearded, obese, and miserable. Take a look at the photo she shows from this year and you could use it to illustrate the word “happy”.
Claire Hall is an elected official in her local government. She won reelection and talks about how she was subjected to ugly attacks by some of the people in her town at the same time she got open-minded, loving support.
Today Claire Hall sends a letter to her ten-year-old-self. Does she tell little Claire to invest in certain stocks or place bets on teams that have won the World Series? No, she just has advice she would have loved to get when she was ten and feeling like she was the only person in the world who had a boy body but knew she was a girl. See what thoughts Claire would send to her young self it was possible.
Many people have considered the past few years to be dark times politically for transgender Americans. With the administration banning us from serving in the Armed Forces, to proposed rules to allow discrimination in emergency shelters and health care, to “bathroom bills” popping up in state legislatures from coast to coast, it seemed like elected […]
Star Trek was a big influence on many people who were growing up in the sixties when the original episodes aired. Then it influenced other generations with new adventures on the Enterprise and spin off shows like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, just to name two. Claire Hall was a Trek fan and in one of the episodes of Next Generation she found a character she identified with.
Claire Hall writes today about her late big sister. Her name was Cathy and she passed away in 1993. Claire never had a chance to let her know that her younger brother was really her sister. Claire did tell her niece, Cathy’s daughter, about her gender. Claire wonders today what her life would have been like if she and Cathy had been sisters when they were young.
How often when you were young did you run across something in comic books, a movie, or a TV show that thrilled you because a male character impersonated a woman, or was transformed into a woman? Even though it was fiction the thrill came from realizing that it might be inspired by reality. For Claire Hall that inspiration came in a Superboy comic book in a story that saw him transformed into Super-Sister!
Claire Hall is surviving the Covid-19 pandemic like many other folks. She is able to work from home most of the time and still attends many meetings everyday. What’s different about those meetings is that they now take place via the internet and the attendees are all on her computer screen as tiny people in stacked boxes. After many months of working this way Claire’s attention to her beauty routine had started to slip. After all, she’s wearing a mask much of the time. Who needs lipstick? Read on and find if she managed to get her groove back.
Claire Hall had a higher profile than most who begin transition. She was prominent in county government and before she came out to her colleagues she had concerns that there would be opposition to her gender change. Happily she didn’t face very much negativity when she announced her transition and the ridicule she had been anticipating didn’t occur. Things went well — until the arrival of the COVID019 pandemic. After her county made a decision on mandatory masks the anti-mask crowd descended on her like evil pigeons on someone in a birdseed covered suit. Today she writes about how tough the abuse has been.
During the current crisis things are tough all over but marginalized transgender people are being hit harder than most. Today Claire Hall discusses the threats to trans people that were present before the pandemic and are exacerbated by it. She does see some positives however. Give her blog a read and see if you agree.
Many of us are impacted by the virus induced lockdown. While some of us whine and moan about how we can’t get out to our favorite watering hole for a few happy hour cocktails en femme, or are bummed out that we can’t wear a flirty dress at a nightclub there are many under the transgender umbrella who are facing real tribulations as the lockdown continues. Claire Hall uses her blog today to remind us of the far reaching consequences of the effort to shutdown the virus.
Claire Hall is a county commissioner in Lincoln County, Oregon. She was first elected to that position in 2004. She transitioned on the job about two years ago. Now she is faced with a campaign to keep her job for a fifth term. Two people with no government experience have decided to run against her, and while she is confident that her record will assure her of a win she is noticing a rise in the amount of people on social media who are starting to say nasty things about her.
With legislation being introduced in state legislatures around the country that is aimed at taking away transgender people’s right it seems like we are in a war. Why the sudden interest in state capitals over doctor prescribed puberty blockers? What is behind bills that would jail doctors who provided care to trans patients, and with the effort to remove protections from anti-discrimination laws? Claire Hall has some thoughts on the subject.
When Claire Hall was a child she used to love to read. The year was 1969 and Claire was a 10-year-old living as a boy. Since she didn’t care for sports or other rough and tumble activities engaged in by most boys her age she looked forward to being able to stay indoors in bad weather and dive into a good book. She had no idea that people who felt like her existed or that changing genders was possible. One day she read one of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books and found a character that inspired her.
One of Claire Hall’s friends said “Performing our identities can be tiring.” That made Claire start to think. Wasn’t all of life filled with performance? Weren’t we one thing to some people and a different variation of ourselves to other people? We may all be wearing masks but in Claire’s case she has found that since she came out as her true self the mask fits.
