Claudia Ancapán

Claudia Ancapán Quilape was born in Chile in 1976 to a family with Mapuche heritage.^[1] Ancapán began to express herself as a female around the age of 3; these habits continued, and, by the age of 5, was forced to live a double life, expressing herself as a girl in private and a "boy" in public. During her time in primary school, Ancapán was bullied and occasionally beaten.^[2][3]

In the 1990s, Ancapán attended the Universidad Austral de Chile, where she studied obstetrics. During her time at the university, she began to research hormone therapy and began to self-treat herself with hormones she (as a student of obstetrics) had access to. She successfully graduated university, but found that finding employment was difficult for a trans woman. She eventually found work as a midwife, and became active in the Chilean trans community; her efforts to promote the idea of gender equality in Chile has resulted in her being cited as one of the most influential members of the Chilean trans community.^[2][4]