OUTED: A Transsexual Personal Story

Stealth until ......

Well, today a nightmare I have fretted over these past few years actually came to happen.

When I applied for my current job, I did so as Annie. To avoid fraudulence, I left the gender space on my job app blank. I was hired immediately and felt quite confident that no one else at this company knew my deep dark secret.

I worked with a supervisor who seemed unusually curious about my past. Any personal questions he asked I always managed to carefully avoid answering. I remember once he warned me that one day he would figure me out.

Well, he left the company a year ago. I thought I was safe again. Wrong.

Today, our office manager received from this nosy fellow an email containing one of my transition articles published on the web in another forum. My boss (and the company's owner) asked me about all this on the telephone shortly after. What a scare!

Well what could I do? I said, "WHY is that man harrassing me a year after he quit here?" My boss responded with advice on how to get this guy to cease and desist. He was more concerned that I was being smeared than he was about the information he'd discovered about me. So I took a chance and opened up about my past. Told him the whole story.

The man is a sterling human being. First he explained that he always knew anyway-- my broad shoulders and muscled upper arms were a giveaway (yet most people I meet DON'T know). Second, he told me that I am his best employee, and my personal business is irrelevant-- Laughingly, he said being a businessman and a greedy Republican :) all he ever sees is , the color of money.

So, a huge fear I have lived with over 4 years has been put to rest. Given a choice, I'd still be stealth, though.

Do you have an "outing" story you'd like to share? Was it at school or work? How has this affected you?