Amanda Simpson, Barack Obama‘s new appointee to the Commerce Department, looks like your average powerful woman with well-coiffed hair and a skirt suit. But a few years ago, Amanda was a dude. Simpson is a former test pilot who has worked for assorted aerospace defense companies for 30 years. She also ran for the Arizona House of Representatives and was a delegate for Hillary Clinton at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She isn’t the first transgendered woman appointed to a government post —that honor went to Senior Policy Adviser Diego Sanchez last year—but she is certainly one of the few. “I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others,” she said. [ABC]
