Washington DC (Map, News) - Dana Beyer is a retired eye surgeon and a senior policy adviser to Montgomery County Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg. She's also a transgender woman.

You've undergone a gender-transition process - how did you decide to do that?

It was sparked by 9/11 of all things - it sounds clichŽ in a way. I went to a wedding in New York shortly thereafter ... I looked downtown at Ground Zero when smoke was enveloping Manhattan and I thought it really doesn't matter what people think, you never know what will happen. I'll find out if they're truly my friends or not. Remarkably, virtually all of them are my friends today.

How is life different now?

For the 50 years that I was living as a male, I was miserable. I was unhappy. I wasn't comfortable being myself. When people take you for a guy, sadly all those characteristics are viewed as perfectly normal, that's what we as a society expect from men. Now when I'm out there I can be me and people are responding to me, they're not responding to a fa‡ade I have up to protect myself.

Does society treat women and men differently?

It's a matter of expectations. Growing up in the '50s and '60s, yeah, it was a different time. The sons were expected to go on to college and professional school but the daughters really weren't.

Have things changed now from your perspective?

Being a woman is still a little more difficult in business and politics, because guys, the old boy's club that hangs together, they treat you differently. They treat women often times as second-class citizens.

How can that be combated?

Women do have to stand up and push themselves out there a little more assertively, be willing to be called bitchy or uppity or whatever it is just to get your voice heard.

kmiller@dcexaminer.com