For our “Meet Your Driver” series, Rev asked several Lyft drivers to tell us about their lives, in their words. 

My name is Rachel. I’ve been driving on the Lyft platform for six years. I love to drive my car. I love to meet people, and I’m a very social person. So for me, it’s perfect. 

So, this is an amazing story, and if I get emotional, please just ignore it. 

I’m a transgender person, and I’ve been struggling with that for my entire life. I started driving with Lyft as Richard and was registered with the company under that name. 

I met a Lyft representative named Ben, and he and I hit it off as friends. I came out to him as transgender and said to him, “Geez, it’s too bad that I can’t drive as my authentic self.” And he said, “Let me look into it.” A couple of weeks later, he told me Lyft had tweaked the software. He said, “Come on in. We’ll take another photo. We’ll change your name on your driver profile, and you can start driving as Rachel.” So I came in dressed nice, and we took the photo and changed the name. 

When you’re male to female trans, you have certain folks you go out with. You change, you go to dinner, you go to safe places, you go in a group. It’s a safety thing. So I was feeling hesitant to go out as my authentic self and drive. But Ben was very encouraging, so I was like, “OK, I’m gonna do this.” 

I got in a car and went out that first day. And when you drive, you get a picture of the person you’re picking up in the app. The very first person was really rough looking, and he reminded me of the guys in seventh grade who took great pleasure in beating the bejeebus out of me. 

I was a little hesitant, but I thought, “Girl, if you’re going to do this, you’ve got to do it.” So I picked him up anyway. His name was Junior. He was a great guy. We had a great conversation and got my night off to an incredible start. 

I did about 13 or 14 rides that night. I kept picking up people and sharing with them, straight up, “Hey, I’m trans. This is my first day driving as my authentic self.” The comments were so positive and reaffirming. It was incredible. I never expected that. It was truly validating of who I really am. 

I got home and wrote this big long text to Ben about how awesome it was. And he asks, “Do you mind if I send this to corporate?” I was like, “I don’t mind.” A few weeks later, a company-wide newsletter featured my story. It was amazing. 

The story doesn’t stop there. After that, corporate Lyft in San Francisco invites me to the October 14, 2017, Human Rights Commission Gala as Lyft’s guest. So I went out and got a gown and some shoes and, you know, all the essentials. Got my nails done. And then flew up to San Francisco. It was amazing, a true Cinderella story. Absolutely. No question. 

So I have a second birthday: September 5, 2017. The day I started driving on the Lyft platform as Rachel, as my authentic self. It’s been an amazing experience, an amazing journey. I get emotional. I spent my whole life essentially transitioning. But to actually be at that point where I’m finally living full time as my authentic self is amazing. I had the ability to make money, and my independence as a result of that just fell into place. That day will always be on my mind.

It’s very liberating to be out and to be able to be myself. I still come out to a lot of my passengers as trans, probably not right off the bat. But they’ll get in the car, and the conversation will start particularly if it’s a ride that’s going to be some amount of time, you know. 

I mean, the truth is it’s a very difficult way to grow up, particularly in the time frame that I did in the ’60s and ’70s. It was not a good time for gay folks let alone transgender people. It was a really, really bad time for a while there. It was illegal to be gay, essentially, and transgender people were just almost invisible. And so it gives me an opportunity to educate people, to try to show them that transgender folks are just like other people. 

There was a situation once. I picked up these two gentlemen in the afternoon; it was still light. They’d both been drinking, and they got in the car, and one of the gentlemen said, “Are you a lady boy?” And I was like, “No, I’m a woman. And I would like to have you address me as a woman.” Just very straightforward like that. I didn’t yell and scream. I just said, you know, this is what it is. He apologized. He said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that.” We had even more discussion about my past and how I got to be where I am today. And, you know, the fact that it’s not easy… 

All we want is an opportunity to live our lives as the person that we present as. I just want to live my life as a woman, and that’s it. I mean, whatever is left of my life, I’m going to do it because I waited a very, very long time to do the transition, trying to be the person everybody else wanted me to be, everybody else expected me to be. And, in the long run, it doesn’t work. If you truly want to be happy, you have to be the person you are inside. That’s the only way to achieve happiness, and it works. 

What I can tell you is after transitioning to be Rachel full time, I achieved a level of happiness that I didn’t know existed. And it gets better. It keeps getting better.