Regardless of whether a person is a famous author and celebrity or just an average working class Joe or Jane, coming out and publicly identifying as a transgender person is no easy task. Even in the best of circumstances and in the most progressive of political climates, transgender identities are usually hard-won, generally involving reams of paperwork and documentation, court appearances, and psychological evaluations, not to mention completely reorganizing one's personal and professional life to accommodate their new gender presentation. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction a transgender person lives in, works in, and was born in, transitioning from one gender to another is often a tedious, expensive, and time-consuming process, sometimes even actually impossible to accomplish entirely. While a gay or lesbian person can come out of the closet by simply declaring their identity to others, transgender people must fight for our identities, sometimes for years, before we will be legally and socially recognized in many quarters as the people we know ourselves to be.