A reader writes: “My question concerns coming out. I am a trans guy in my early 40s. I started transitioning medically about a year ago, and have started to have all the usual changes (voice, build, hair, etc.).
“While I’m no Lana Wachowski, I am a public figure. What I mean is, I have published books and other things under my female name, and in the small universe of my particular expertise, I am fairly well-known. So I have accepted that ‘stealth’ will never be an option for me.
“I have now ‘come out’ to everyone I can think of whom I care about personally, including people in my profession. But I have avoided making a public statement or putting anything on the web because a) in spite of everything I am a very private person, and b) even if I did want to make a change to my web presence, I can’t think of a simple, professional way to announce the change without making it into a big deal or draw unwanted attention.
“At the same time, the situation is getting critical: people who know me through my writing who meet me for the first time are getting very confused, and other acquaintances are feeling (I sense) confused and annoyed because they don’t know what to do with my obvious changes.
“Do you or your readers have any suggestions for how to come out as trans as a public figure with an established identity? Any suggestions for phrasing on a website or byline? Making a speech at the Academy Awards is not an option for me, unfortunately 
So I need to find a way to sort of ‘slip in’ information about my gender identity in as modest and laid back a way as possible.”
This is a great question, and I hope that readers have some good advice. I was not known publicly prior to my transition, so my web presence, my books, and everything else that I have done has been since my transition.
But I can say that it does reach a critical point when people start to become confused, annoyed, or even scared by obvious physical changes that they can’t explain. In my case, I didn’t come out at work until after I had made some major changes, and the rumor got around that I was dying of cancer (regular readers have heard this one before).
When I finally did come out, fearing the worst, my coworkers and staff were so happy that I didn’t have cancer that they were not at all upset by my transition. The most politically and religiously conservative of my staff – the person who I thought would be the most judgmental and might want to quit when she found out her supervisor was trans – said, “I’m so glad you’re not dying that I don’t care what you do.”
Now you are at this point – you have to say something. And this would be my recommendation:
Put up a small announcement on your website (and on your professional Facebook page, LinkedIn, or whatever professional sites and profiles you have online) saying something like this: “I am very pleased to announce that I am in the process of transitioning from female to male. This has been both a difficult and very exciting experience, as you can imagine, and I am happy to be sharing it with you now. Going forward, I will be publishing under my new name, John Smith, and using my new pronouns, he and him. As always, I appreciate your ongoing support of my work, and I look forward to our continued partnerships.”
Obviously, that’s my wording, and you will have your own. But I would make it brief, to the point, and upbeat. I would offer no type of excuse or apology, and I would not take a “victim” stance (“I hope you will still want to work with me.”).
If you are willing to answer questions, you could put that in your announcement (“If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me. I will try to answer them as best I can.”), but this is not necessary. You say you are a private person, and you might just want to keep it that way. And beware – if you do agree to answer questions, you might get deluged.
Your readers, contacts, and groups will generally take their cues from you about how to respond. If you are positive, they will probably be positive, too. If you act like it’s no big deal, they will be more inclined to feel that way as well (although it will be a bigger deal to some of them than they might let on).
After you have that announcement on your website for a reasonable period of time, and after you have changed everything on your website to reflect your new name (with new photos, if you have photos on your site), you can take the announcement down. Once you start publishing under your new name, you will probably have photos of your old books, under your old name, and your new books, under your new name, on your site, and new visitors can just figure it out.
If you are writing articles to be published in journals and so on, and you want readers to connect these articles to your prior persona and your prior publications, you could have something in the bio that appears at the end of the article: “John Smith, formerly Jane Jones, is the author of seven books, including How to Make Your Dog Love You and Animal Rights for All. Find him on his website at johnsmith.xxx.” (I made up the names of these books – I have no idea what you write about, and would not put it in here if I did.)
That would be my advice – keep it simple and upbeat. I hope we hear from readers who have actually done this and have successes and cautions to share. Good luck!
Having experienced a similar transition, I thought I should add my voice. I’m robbi cohn, and am fairly well known in my community as a photographer and licensee of the Grateful Dead. My images hang all over the world, so stealth was never an option if I wanted to maintain my career. I actually DID attempt stealth, but found career opportunities as a newly transitioned person with no experience were nonexistent. (I live in rural North Carolina.)
I returned to school, hoping I could find a way to build a new life. After graduating first in my class as a paralegal, I learned that I was still faced with document incongruity and jobs were still unavailable. I had to make a choice…disclose my gender history and get refused the job…or…not disclose and and run the risk of being caught with documents that did not line up…most employers asked to see my ID, and it was obvious I was NOT robert. I must be trying to deceive them.
In all honesty, I never really wanted to live a stealthy life…I did some small work as an activist and wrote a column for my local lgbt newspaper. But, even had I wanted to resume life as a photographer, so much had changed and I was financially unable to make my desires a reality. I did a 3 year stint at Walmart, had an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and basically was alone and in deep depression.
Eventually, I was given the opportunity to resurrect my career because of the kindness of another transwoman. Today I live a life I would have thought impossible even four years ago.
I’ve shared my experiences for two reasons. The first is to express what is to me the most important antidote to suicidal thoughts…we NEVER know what is around the corner. Don’t despair. Even when life’s prospects appear darkest, there really is a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
The second thought is specifically meant for those who DO have careers in which they’ve attained some public notice. Believe in yourself and your abilities and that they will carry you through regardless of the obstacles that impose themselves on your path. Don’t allow yourself to buy into the “self victimization” society expects you to embrace. We face enough discrimination without allowing ourselves the psychologically untenable position of embracing that victim status.
Each of us has talents and abilities. Believe in them and yourself.
I concur with Matt.
You may also reach out to others who have been through the same process: Chaz Bono, Lukas Silviera, Alexis Arquette, or lesser known guys like, StormMiguel Florez, Joshua Klipp and Joe Stevens in California: all three were musical performers prior to transition and still tour. Google their names and send them an email. Their journey can inform yours.
I was in a similar situation, in a small capital in Eastern Europe, where I had a certain level of status. Also I worked as a consultant throughout that region, for the EU and others. Most of those countries have never heard of transgender, and the country I lived in had ‘not legalised’ the medical procedures. It was a really, really scary thought, more so because I feared I might never be accepted again as a consultant, or indeed any employee. In Europe there is strong anti-discrimination legislation, but still. At that time I had no idea what I would look like or anything…
5 years later…So I told my friends, one after the other, before even hormones and so on. I remember one elderly friend, with whom I shared a bit of a language, not getting it at all (wrong place, wrong time to tell him). But I kept going round and telling others, who were all very welcoming and eventually he got it. There was a funny moment around a music competition, for which I had helped to fundraise, where I attended the final concert in blazer and tie. Afterwards there was a party, and I had just whipped off my tie, when I was given some award certificate for my efforts, in my female name.
In view of the freelance working I was also really scared about never getting work again – who had heard of this person, what experience did he have, he had worked in all these countries, but people had not heard about him, and the EU needs documented evidence of previous work for every contract, all of which was ‘female’. My first attempt at a first name was lopping off the last letter of the previous one, which turned it into a male version, but really only in Switzerland (where I am not from). It was also a particularly unfortunate name in an anglophone world. In the end I kept it as a middle name, for people to find me if they googled me, and took the name of my dreams as my first name (when I joined my current organisation, they did not recognize the middle name as one such, so it’s in my email address and any name badges I am ever given, oh well…).
I then wrote to all previous employers, many of them as a consultant, and asked them to change the certificates into my new male name. This was mainly in Europe, and there it is ok, mainly, except for a British local government and an American employer, both of whose asses I had to kick, hard, to get this into place. Then the people I was working for at the time had it explained to them, and it was fine. I did lose one small piece of work, in Libya, just at the moment of transition – it was thought Libya could not take it. (In hindsight it would not have done much good anyway, what with events there since then.) Now still some firms, in whose database I have been for a while, write to me in the old name from time to time asking if I want to join a proposal; I just respond in my new name, with little or no explanation.
There was also a music congress which I regularly attended, and shortly after transition I went to it, saw some people I knew (mostly elderly), and said, ‘Hi, I’m Peter’. We then had a normal chat, but they later reported being quite confused… There were also two other people, one elderly, one younger and gay, who asked if I knew the female of the same surname who came from the little country I lived in at the time. That really pleased me, and made the elderly chap realise that transgender people are not always freaks. I also realised that I had changed quite a lot, visually, which can be hard for us to notice. We recognize the same old people, but they may not recognize us.
I was very lucky to get my new passport just before I was asked for an interview to the organisation who I work for now, though they had invited me on my old CV. I suspect more people know than let on, but this is ok. As it happens, this organisation is now beginning to think about LGBT issues, and I want to be involved in this, so it may be useful for that to come out as an ex-woman, which is again a pain, given the variety of countries we work in…
What Matt suggests is reasonable. But it can be irritating to you that you just want to move on, whereas this thing is always a bit of a show-stopper in any conversation. WE can talk about it airily and then continue the conversation, but the recipient of the information may become completely distracted. But I had that, too, when I was working in social services in the UK, as a native German (female) with an accent, and those ‘customers’ would spend more time trying to work out my accent than listening to the key information I was providing to them.
I’m not a public figure, but I’m a communications consultant with long-term clients who transitioned many years into my career.
After I got my legal name change, I told all my clients by email (which is my main means of communication with them, since I work from home) that I was *happily* transitioning to a male identity and asked them to change their records accordingly.
I’ve had nothing but supportive reactions. One of my clients even sent me a card congratulating and encouraging me on my journey, and several others sent me supportive emails. Some just changed their records and starting calling me by my new name. I live in Canada and my clients are Canadian, American and German. Everyone has been great.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
I’m not exactly a public figure, but I think transitioning while working as the school psychologist for three elementary schools was a pretty public transition. i had a transition team – the District’s head of safety and security, the communications director, the head of my department, my direct supervisor, the head of the employee assistance program, and the District’s informal liaison to LGBT families. As a team we planned a letter to my 45 psychology colleagues, and the EAP director and the LGBT liaison went to each of my schools on the last day before summer break (when no students were present) and told the staff about my transition. These were all people who knew me personally, so things went pretty well. I started work as Jill in the fall. There were no letters to parents – we thought that was likely to feed a frenzy. I just went about my work as Jill. Parents and students who knew me before accepted it in stride, many complimenting me on my appearance. I had no issues – this was in three schools with 1,250 students and their families and staff. There were two minor incidents – an orthodox Jewish family objected that they had to answer questions from their 11 year old they were unprepared to answer. A single sunni muslim parent did not want me to do the evaluation for her child; I was able to have a colleague do the direct testing with her daughter. And she came around after a month, realizing I was a safe person who could help her child. My transition went very well. to the shock of my transition team. None of them had any experience with a transitioning employee.