It is absolutely amazing.  I have to thank you and everyone else posting their stories because they gave me the courage to come around and take care of this.

Out to the brothers and their kids.  All of the kids (8 to 15 years old) seem to be doing pretty well with it.  The youngest was a little weird at first but she had a sit down with my girlfriend and after a bit I came in and answered questions.  She perked back up after that.  Last night she demanded that I let her paint my toenails, so they're a very messy shade of blue at the moment. 

Everyone is doing a great job working on pronouns and name.  They slip now and then as expected, but the fact that they're genuinely trying almost makes me cry. 

EDIT: We also had some fun coming out to friends who are also a lesbian couple, so we went to dinner but "forgot" to tell them anything about me being trans.  They were a little confused when the host told them "there's two ladies over there waiting for two more" but they caught on once they saw my girlfriend.  They were pretty amazed by the whole thing and are totally cool with it.  We had a great time.

Awesome!

Messy blue painted toenails - take a picture, you will want to look at that photo in the future.  Such a sweet story. 

Quote from: Colleen_definitely on July 22, 2017, 04:19:49 PM


Honestly more good than bad.

That's coming out in general.  It's terrifying on the front end, but I have yet to meet the person who regrets having done it.

Quote from: Kendra on September 04, 2017, 11:27:07 PM
Awesome!

Messy blue painted toenails - take a picture, you will want to look at that photo in the future.  Such a sweet story.

Oh definitely, if nothing else we can use it to embarrass her when she starts dating.   

"Remember when you just had to paint aunt Colleen's toes for her?"

Her eyes are going to roll back so hard we'll be able to hear them.

More developments at work:

My boss's boss (national manager) and his boss (manager for the Americas) have known for a couple of weeks now.  They are both supportive, I expected the national manager be since I'm one of his favorite employees.

Anyway as for telling my boss.  I wanted to tell him in person with the national manager there, but managing to get two remote employees and the national manager together in one place at the same time is nigh on impossible in my line of work.  So HR is going to drop the bomb on my boss today as my IDs are going to start changing soon.  I'm likely to get an interesting phone call tonight, but I don't think he'll react too badly.

Onward and upward.

Congratulations Colleen.  I hope it goes smoothly.  Big corporations tend to, IME.

Well word from HR is that the boss is on board and totally supportive but wants to chat on the phone and have a face to face next week.  Of course that email got sent to me ten minutes after my flight took off, so no phone call today (we have a policy of no calls after 5PM unless you're literally dying on a job site or you're the first to notice the apocalypse starting).  I'll call him in the morning and see what he has planned for next week.

So that's basically it until I fire off an email to the other guys in my region and another email for the people I interact with regularly elsewhere in the company.

I mean really HOLY CRAP!  THAT'S IT? 
Why did I convince myself that this would be so hard?

Quote from: Colleen_definitely on September 26, 2017, 08:55:01 PM

Why did I convince myself that this would be so hard?

Because it will be.  Nevertheless, congratulations on a very auspicious start.

Wahoo!!!!   

Had the chat with the boss this morning while on the road in Wisconsin.  It was pretty short due to all hell breaking loose at another customer's site, but it went well.

"I have to say, I was totally surprised by that one.  Don't worry I'll keep my mouth shut until you're ready."

So we have a meeting next week, probably at a barbecue restaurant in KC because that's his biggest vice, and we'll hammer out the details on scheduling.

Quote from: Colleen_definitely on August 26, 2017, 08:41:27 PM
It is absolutely amazing.  I have to thank you and everyone else posting their stories because they gave me the courage to come around and take care of this.

And now you are helping the chain. I am still building the courage to tell my wife's family.

Well hopefully I can be a bad influence for somebody! 

Looking back it was a lot easier to do than I feared it would be.  Once you break the ice, it just sort of spills out.  It's just that first little step, statement, or even word that is so damn scary.  That's part of why I went with letters at first since I didn't have to make that step aside from tossing things in the mailbox.  (not going to lie, that part was scary too)

No longer having to lie by omission, or be careful about what name to use around whom is incredibly liberating.  But it's not all going perfectly.  It has been ten weeks since I told my dad and I have still not heard a thing from him.  It really helps to focus on the positive here, because there will be plenty of that to balance out the bad.

Awesome Colleen.  I remember what a great relief it was when my boss said she planned to go to each department during monthly meetings, personally tell them about my transition and that they supported me.  Most everyone had figured it out by then anyway, but I was being destroyed by the rumor mill.  After the CEO met with them, the chatter behind my back stopped and people would speak to me directly again--mostly congratulations.

Get ready for the nosy questions and decide how you will answer them. 

Family support feels great, but family detractors or non-accepters can rip you up for years to come.  I'm not very close to my parents, but I still visit them regularly.  One minute my mom can ask me how my transition is going and what my goals are, and 5 minutes later she is deadnaming me and calling me him.  Death of a thousand cuts.

The good news for me is that I'm a remote employee so I get to draft a quick "Hey, this is what's going on so you don't get confused when my email name changes later" memo to the people I interact with regularly.  The rest of them can just deal with a bit of confusion.  It will be a bit awkward with the customers I visit regularly but they'll deal with it. 

I'll definitely tell them I'm open to questions and they can feel free to ask.  My immediate supervisor has had plenty so far, but he's doing OK.

I took the same open approach.  In fact, when I came out to my boss, I brought an FAQ with me, which she used to some extent in her department meetings.  Nothing kills nosy behavior like radical disclosure.  No one feels like they have any juicy gossip anymore.

Not for everyone, but it works.

I gave my old man 12 weeks, he's still hiding from this.

So what's a girl to do in the face of this childishness?  Tell her dad's gossip queen sister of course.  I had to come out to my extended family anyway, so why the hell not now?

It went over great!  My two closest female cousins were the ones I contacted first and they were surprised but really excited as well.  The one male cousin that I heard back from is supportive and happy for me in his genuine smartassed sort of way.  The gossip queen aunt was really surprised and a little confused "but you were in the army!" and seems to be on track now that I got to explain things a bit to her and answered a lot of her questions.  My uncle (husband of the gossip queen) is totally supportive as well.

Knowing my aunt, half the universe was told yesterday but that's OK.  The only one hiding anything is my dad and that little shell of denial is about to burn down around him.

Now there's only two coworker letters left to send.  One for the guys in my region, the other is more general and for those in the rest of the USA and Europe that I work with fairly regularly.

Nervous wreck to nearly done in just over 12 weeks, who would have thought?  Not I.

I think the younger generation here may have different experiences.  This is an excellent shift.

For those of us, say 35+ however, you can't wait for your parents or grandparents to hop on board.  I have no living grandparents, but my parents have been very slow movers, and may never accept me fully.  I found that my aunts and cousins, particularly the female ones, were essential in terms of early support.  Co-workers (I work with a 100% female staff) even more so.

I am in the 35 and up crowd

Hi Colleen,

  I just wanted to congratulate you on what appears to be a very successful coming out with the exception of your dad. With me it was my daughter that I had a complete fail with no hope of it being resolved. I sincerely hope your dad and the rest come around for you over time. Focus on your victories. Well done Colleen. Many happy days going forward.