A Mayo Clinic radiologist resident recently came out as a trans woman on Twitter and the revelation has since gone viral on the social media site.
Evelyn Carroll, MD, first made the announcement in a thread shared on June 5. She followed that up with side-by-side photos of her new badge and a selfie on June 11.
“Brought my authentic self to work for the first time in my life! It felt so good to just ‘be me,’” she wrote last week in a post that has since garnered more than 393,000 “likes” and nearly 20,000 retweets.
“I am in shock and awe from the love and support I am receiving from thousands of people, mostly strangers,” she wrote the following day. “Honestly I'm speechless. To everyone who wrote beautiful comments, I cannot possibly respond to them all, so thank you.”
In her original message on June 5, Carroll said she had for years hid her true gender identity from friends, family, coworkers and herself. With encouragement from her ex-spouse, she “finally built up the courage” to see a gender therapist. And in December, she began her gender transition.
She also thanked her “amazing” radiology program directors at Mayo. Katie Hunt, MD, and Annie Packard, MD, “have been incredibly supportive and accepting from the moment I shared my true gender identity with them earlier this year,” Carroll shared.
“Never have I felt so aligned with my inner sense of self. And, I cannot possibly describe just how incredible it feels to not have to hide anymore,” Carroll concluded her 11-tweet thread on June 5. “My name is Evelyn and I’m a woman.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.