"Coming out" at work:

[EmmaS]

Hi everyone!

So I'm sure that you all have heard this before a million times, but I just wanted to give my perspective and be fully interactive with what you guys suggest and hopefully you can all help me a lot because I'm really struggling with how to go about coming out at my particular workplace. So thank you for taking the time to help me out and sorry if it seems repetitive at all.

Primarily I'm a college student, but I work about 30 hours a work to pay for rent, food, books, etc, so quitting is not an option for me. I work for a company that I've been with about 6 months(So relatively short), but in that span I've made significant progress with the company and I'm the main trainer for new hires now. I really like everyone that I work with and I've even made a couple friends."Coming out" to my workplace really stresses me out because I'm in a position that requires me to be trusted by my fellow co-workers in order to move up in the company which would be ideal and could happen as soon as 3 months from now. There are several people who I know wouldn't have an issue with my transition, but at the same time, there are several that I'm confident would have an issue of some kind with it. As of now only 1 person knows that I confided in and she told me that she would be happy to help me tell others about it. So overall, I'm afraid that when I "come out" to everyone at work, it will be extremely weird and all of those relationships I've built will be diminished as well.

So what would you all recommend doing? I prefer telling people in a 1v1 setting, but my friend/coworker suggested telling everyone at once, so I wanted to get other opinions on it. I really want to continue working here because it has been going extremely well with my school schedule and just in general as well. All feedback is appreciated immensely, no matter how small you might think it is because I'm pretty scared to tell them. What I don't want to do is just procrastinate so much and people start to get suspicious. Again, thank you everyone for helping, it really does mean a lot, I'd be screwed without you all.

<3 Emma 

[LordKAT]

Hi Emma,

I haven't seen you around in a while and am glad to hear from you.

I came out by making small changes and once they stared to be more noticed, I told my immediate supervisor and the the admin assistant. I then gave them my name change papers and the cat was out.

The next months safety meeting was delivered personally one on one by my boss and was about sexual harassment in the workplace. This worked well. I did and do have some unwell wishers and had some negative feedback but all in all, I was OK and backed by my employer.

My suggestion is to speak with your supervisor and get a feel for whether or not they will back you. It makes a world of difference if they do.

Good Luck and I hope you share how things turn out.

[JLT1]

Hi Emma!

Hugs!!! 

I'm doing the one on one thing with people who I trust and will support me when I tell the remainder.  I've also told my manager one on one and followed my company's policy.  I do think it is good to have allies when everything happens.
 
Jen

[generous4]

...she told me that she would be happy to help me tell others about it. So overall, I'm afraid that when I "come out" to everyone at work, it will be extremely weird and all of those relationships I've built will be diminished as well.

I was in a similar situation.  My partner and I worked at the same office, and she was very good at being my advocate.  As one of the other members posted, your employer is the one who will make a big difference.  My boss was great about it, and she ended up getting the rest of the office informed, plus my partner did the same thing informally. 

But before that, I was really unwilling.  I was still able to function in boy mode fairly well, but my partner advocated that I come out of hiding.  She was right, and it was well worth doing.