I thought I'd post my coming out story here. Anyway, I kind of came out with a bang. I started to dress first at my house, coming out to my roommates and then I told my family and more friends and then work. Eventually I started going out dressed more and more. I got to the point that I just wanted to be full time and I started going full time in September.
Then, there was a school shooting in Montreal a few weeks later. It was really horrible and I felt bad about what was going on. Just then I got an email from a local news TV station. They called me because I monitor a local goth-alternative related message board and they wanted my perspective on the shootings. This was about the second week that I've been going full time, and I was only on HRT for a month and a half.
It was crazy. A lot of things raced through my head -- I thought of not doing the interview, but at the same time I knew how to talk well and I wouldn't want them to pick some weird freaky person instead of me (the media loves doing that). Then I thought of going as a "man," but then I knew that I'd feel hypocritical and regret it later.
So, I did the interview as Natalie -- and then I was on TV on the morning show, for the lunch hour show, for the evening show, and for the late-night show. The interview not only was broadcast in Calgary, but much of southern Alberta.
"Well," I thought, "If no body knew I was out, they do now."
For a few weeks after I had people who I didn't know come up and talk to me and tell me that they saw me on TV and that I did good. I had no real issues. But I felt pretty good about doing that. Being on TV just when you go full-time is nerve racking, but at afterward I felt like a million dollars because I did something so out there that I thought I could never do.
After that, all the fears I had about coming full-time out were gone. If I could handle having over a million people watching me on there TV sets, I could handle the every day life of living full-time. Sure, there are bumps along the way, but living full-time as myself has been the best thing I've ever done, and the greatest ride I've ever had.
--natalie
