Coming out is hard

When I decided to attend Hamvention as a woman, I felt obligated to inform the officers and directors of the organization whose booth I would be staffing at the convention (I was an officer and director myself). I also felt obligated to inform my publisher and editor, who published my ham radio books and articles. 

I composed a coming out letter. That was the easy part. Sending it was the hard part.

I recall copying that letter into the text of an email, adding all the email addresses into the To: field and then hesitating to click on the Send button for hours... over three hours. 

I finally realized that my hesitancy was ridiculous – I had to come out to these people or chuck my plans to attend the convention as a woman. So I clicked on the Send button and waited for the reaction.

I was shocked by the response. Not a discouraging word, just lots of support from my publisher, editor and fellow officers and directors. 

What a relief! And that episode empowered me to come out to anyone. 

mytransgenderdate.com recently did a study with their user base about their coming out experience.

They discovered some interesting findings.

Transwomen are three times more likely to come out than transmen

The majority of transwomen come out before age 30

Many transmen don’t think that they need to come out

Friends and mothers are favorite persons to come out to first

26% of transwomen said they lost their job or a job opportunity as a result of coming out

Only 6% of transwomen declare regretting coming out

Click here to access the whole study (methodology, numbers, charts) and an accompanying article.

Wearing Paige

Frank Puglia femulating in the 1937 film Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge.