Almost outed myself at work yesterday

[Eva Marie]

I am not out full time at work yet. Its imminent, but I'm not quite ready yet.

I had an appointment with my endo yesterday so I decided to go to the doctors appointment and then work the rest of the day from home.

Our company uses gotomeeting for remote meetings and I had one that started shortly after I got home from the endo. I planned to dial into the meeting from home.

I take voice lessons and the voice coach uses gotomeeting for her training sessions, so I had entered "Eva" as my gotomeeting name for those sessions on my laptop that I use at home (those of you that use gotomeeting can probably see where this is heading).

So I used the same laptop to connect to the work meeting, and in the attendees list that everyone can view i see "Eva" pop up!  My boss and all my coworkers were going to be in that meeting!!!!

Luckily I happened to dial in early and was the first attendee so I immediately disconnected.

Its always something small and unexpected that outs you.

[Ms Grace]

I had a similar panic several months ago, and technology was also to blame. I had changed my name on my iPhone to Grace without realising it did the same thing to my work email address via the Mail Exchange synch...but it only did it on my phone. I sent an email to all staff via my phone and next thing I see my female name pop up in the inbox. Everyone else got at as being from my male name but I did panic. It was a clear sign that I was needing to transition ASAP!

[Jessica Merriman]

Same boat here. Before I went full time I had a male and new female page. I accidentally sent out an E-mail on my female account which has my picture on the account!  I closed my male account after posting a coming out the next day. Kind of sped things up a little.

Sure glad you caught it Eva!! Please post a full time date so we can give you what we gave Grace!!

[AnnaCannibal]

Well I drive for a living, and as a requirement all medications are to be listed promptly and approved before I can hit the road.  Well, that pretty much took care of any hesitation on my part and my boss and the whole HR department know.  Now my boss pesters me when I'm getting my legal name change.  Not for a while, sheesh!   

[Eva Marie]

Same boat here. Before I went full time I had a male and new female page. I accidentally sent out an E-mail on my female account which has my picture on the account!  I closed my male account after posting a coming out the next day. Kind of sped things up a little.

Sure glad you caught it Eva!! Please post a full time date so we can give you what we gave Grace!!

It'll be soon Jessica. I'm taking the paperwork to the courthouse next week and then I'll know a date.

[Misha]

I had a similar panic several months ago, and technology was also to blame. I had changed my name on my iPhone to Grace without realising it did the same thing to my work email address via the Mail Exchange synch...but it only did it on my phone. I sent an email to all staff via my phone and next thing I see my female name pop up in the inbox. Everyone else got at as being from my male name but I did panic. It was a clear sign that I was needing to transition ASAP!

I have something similar but I let it go to the end. During last October I changed my Skype display name from my original full male name to what I wanted to get with my first name change which in Czech is only to neutral form (I'll get my female name after SRS).

So just based on that I said to myself that people might as well not notice. Well, I was wrong :-) . Quite a few people from my contact list asked me about the "new nickname". So I just told them the truth. That made coming out at work (or anywhere else) pretty simple.

[JohannaJohn]

About a month before I started E and P 5 weeks ago, I answered the door to the 2 building maintenance men I needed to fix an electricity problem at the circuit breakers in my apartment.

When I opened the door, I forgot that I was barefoot...

And I had my toenails painted a lovely bright red with beautiful red nail polish.

The younger handyman said to the older handyman, in Spanish (I live in Latin America), "He has his toenails painted bright red!"

Yikes...I wasn't ready to come out in my apartment building yet...

So I let them all the way in to fix my circuit breaker, sent to another room for 30 seconds to put on socks and shoes, and walked back out to the kitchen where they were.

Not another word was said about it.

Hey, the world didn't come to an end.  A little embarrassing I guess, but hey, I LOVE my bright red beautiful nail polish I have had on my toenails nearly all of the time for about 3 or 4 months now...

Usually it is hidden...but if I have an "accident" like that once in awhile...well, I guess the world will simply have to accept me as I am!

DELIGHTFUL!!!! ssoooooo GREAT!

[Joan]

I replies to a friend's tweet from from my 'other' account, and it was a couple of hours before I noticed and deleted it.

Not a word has been said, so whether he saw it or not I won't know till I let him know what's going on

[svaso]

I'm not FT at work yet either, though everyone in positions above me know my status.  Months ago before anyone knew, I accidentally texted a picture of a new handbag to a friend, but sent it to a coworker instead.  That made for an interesting conversation the next day.  Today, I don't care too much.  I wear nail polish to work because I don't wish to waste my hard earned money by removing it on Sunday evening.  I used to do that all the time and it really depressed me to do it.  I also used to wear baggy clothes to hide my growing breasts, but dang it, they're mine so I now wear properly fitted shirts.  Wish they were bigger though.  Though my hair is still kinda short, I try to make it as feminine as possible.  And while I don't wear much makeup to work yet, I can't help but filling in my brows and wearing foundation before heading to work.  My direct boss always updates me on those that are questioning me.  Mostly, people are wondering if I'm gay....whatever.  Directly though, my employees are still respectful to me as I am to them so I haven't had any performance problems.  Ultimately, my goal has been to slowly out myself with my appearance and how I project myself.  I figure it will be less of a shock to coworkers to handle it this way.

~Stacy

[Julia-Madrid]

This is all hysterical...you really have to take it with a sense of humour!!  And we're all human!

Between Skype, Facebook, Linkedin and Whatsapp, what made me accelerate my transition was a business meeting we had to do via Skype, rather than our corporate systems, and afterwards, a colleage in a partner company who attended the meeting called to say that my girl photo was flashing up every time I talked.  He was one of the few who knew about me, but I started to out myself more deliberately from that point.

Actually, I had a complete plan for gradually outing myself:  Skype photo, then Facebook (almost only friends), then Whatsapp (ditto), then Linkedin (work!) and then finally our company's corporate systems.  There's always some mixing of people between those applications so I knew they would generate some chatter, which was also part of the plan.  The result was pretty good - a bit like alpine skiing as an intermediate - you're mostly in control, but not entirelyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.  That's part of the fun!