As you know, I'm transitioning openly at work in front of people who've known me for more than 5 years. So I had to come out to all of them and explain that I would be changing my name, starting hormones and having some ops. I'm doing it right under their noses; there's no possibility of stealth for me.
Having to reveal so much personal information caused a huge spike in my anxiety because I've spent so many years hiding myself away almost to the point of being paranoid about anyone knowing the truth. I was terrified of people actually knowing something very personal about me.
But it went very well. All of my colleagues, clients and suppliers have been absolutely wonderful and very accommodating. If they have any negative opinions, they keep them to themselves. So after only a few months of anxiety (LOL) it all got better and I just got on with the business of doing my job.
If I had my own way about this, I would be stealth. But that's just not possible when I desperately need to keep my job in this current market. It's easier for me to transition in a relatively safe job, and then consider moving on after the market has recovered and I've completed my transition. I may well try being stealth in my next job, just to see what it's like.
But as for Uni, it's not like secondary school where everyone is in everyone else's business. You're about to become a very small fish in a very big pond, and the overwhelming majority of students and lecturers won't know you from a bar of soap. So if you want to be stealth, why not just introduce yourself as Joey from such-and-such city, who is studying such-and-such course, and leave it at that? None of the other students are going to tell you
their medical history, so you don't have to tell them yours if you don't want to. You could excuse your voice and appearance as being features of a late puberty, which will make a lot of sense when you suddenly hit puberty in a few months' time.
If you do choose to tell a couple of people, it probably won't make its way around the campus like it does in secondary school because it isn't the same kind of gossipy environment. And if it does come out completely, well you ain't going to be at Uni forever, and once you start work you'll most likely never see any of those people again, so you could always reinvent yourself as stealth after you graduate.
