Having problems with converting my DateTime to UTC

You need to set the Kind to Unspecified, like this:

DateTime now = DateTime.SpecifyKind(DateTime.Now, DateTimeKind.Unspecified);
var utc = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(now , zone);

DateTimeKind.Local means the in local time zone, and not any other time zone. That’s why you were getting the error.