Today, I went into the office with my nails still painted from the weekend. I probably should have made sure to not forget to take it off since I’m only out to a handful of people at work right now, but I didn’t. I wasn’t quite sure how things were going to go down, so I had a lot of responses prepared for anything anyone could have said.
At one point in the morning, one coworker came by my desk, saw my nails, and made a comment about it which caused another coworker who sits across from me to turn around for my response. I just said “it’s a long story” instead of going with an actual lie. The coworker who sits near me then asked if it was really a long story or if I really just didn’t want to tell it. I said I didn’t want to tell it and he joked about making up his own.
Towards the end of the day, I got curious and asked what he came up with. At first he really fought telling me because he was afraid if he was wrong I would be really offended. Eventually, I got it out of him though. He said “I know you care a lot about transgender rights so…I was thinking…it was related to…that?” I wouldn’t have even started this conversation if I wasn’t prepared for it going down like this, so I told him he was right and that I’m transitioning. He was kind of quiet after that, but I didn’t read it as a bad thing, just as him sort of processing it. When I told him I’m changing my name to Amelia, he said “like Amy Pond!?” I told him he was right again!
After work, he called me and told me he was worried I might have taken him being quiet as something bad and he wanted to assure me he was just processing it and actually supports me a lot. He told me he felt “honored” that I trusted him enough to tell him at this point. We talked for a few minutes and I told him a little more about transition. He said if there was anything he could do to make work easier when I come out to let him know and that he supports me 100%. I just told him I was glad to have another ally in the office.
So…yay!