EP22: OLIVIA HILL

This week I’m speaking with Olivia Hill. As Tennessee’s first openly transgender elected official, Olivia ran her campaign focused on being the most qualified person to sit at the table. A native of Nashville with over three decades of engineering experience, Olivia’s priority is helping to keep her hometown’s underground infrastructure on pace with its above ground development.

Raised by her mother to never give up, Olivia began the journey towards becoming herself at a young age. Having to reconcile an environment which told she should be one way, while internally feeling another, she spent her adolescence in constant turmoil and turned to the Navy in hopes of finding a solution. After nearly a decade, Olivia left a combat veteran with a myriad of skills, including how hide the parts of herself she needed to keep secret in order to remain safe.

Upon returning to Nashville, Olivia began her 25 year career with Vanderbilt University where she would ultimately transition and in the process receive what she calls a huge education. Olivia never set out to make history, but in a state intent on making life more difficult for its transgender community, her personal experience makes her the perfect person to do so, and those who supported her candidacy appear to agree.

It is my pleasure to present Olivia Hill on The Days Between..