Coming out at work advice? (Not what you think!)

[Abby Kae]

My wonderful wife is a planner to the Nth degree, and one of the things on her mind these days is how to tell her coworkers about my transition.

Unfortunately, while there are a million and three resources for me/us to tell important people together, we can't seem to find a whole lot of advice or tips on how to broach the subject with people who don't know me, but hear stories about me all the time. She works with quite a large number of people who also have a spouse staying home with the children, so my adventures in child rearing come up rather frequently.

Her company is very LGBTQ-friendly, with some senior management having transitioned themselves (4+ years ago, and still there), so there's no fear of losing job security, it's more just a question of a tactful way of saying, "Oh, so hey... You've heard me tell stories of my husband... Well, she's my wife now. Okay, see you tomorrow!"

Thoughts? Tips? Advice? Links?

Thanks! :)
-Abby

[Jennifer-GWN]

Happy to connect on this topic as I came out in June in a 100k people company where my span of reach and impact as more that 10k of that.

Cheers... Jennifer

[Eringirl]

Hey Abby: For me, one of the first things people wanted to know re my wife was if she was okay. So that may be the concern for your wife with her work colleagues. In which case, she may want to start with a statement that she has something she wants to share that is very personal, but that "I am okay, and WE are okay". Put their mind at ease and they are able to listen to the rest of the narrative. PM me if you would like to know more???

best of luck to her.....I hope it goes well.

[I Am Paula]

A really good post, looking at it from a perspective that isn't brought up a lot.
Unfortunately, my wife has taken the ostrich approach, and just doesn't talk about it to other people.
I hope other readers have some good advice, cause in my experience, when someone asks 'Who was that that dropped you off?' a really bad answer is 'I don't f'ing know'.

[Nigella]

Sandra and I were fortunate that we both worked, at the time, for the same employer. We did a joint letter, which was distributed by the Company to all employees, stating my transition was a personal thing, that we were not ashamed, we were available to anyone who had questions. We then left the ball in their court.

[Frances]

The book True Selves contains an How to section on the subject. I gave a copy to HR and they used it to write their letter of anouncement to the employees.