This past Thursday was a huge day for me. After all these years of hiding in shame, self loathing, fear and denial, I have finally come out publicly. I crafted a very lengthy coming out post and put it on my male Facebook profile. The enormity of this action didn't even really hit me fully until later when I realized, this is the end. This is the end of that hiding, of that shame of having to live a double life, I'm about a half baby step from living full time now. My neighbors, my family and my friends all know the real story and it is GLORIOUS!!
So far, 117 of the 142 people I had as friends on Facebook have chosen to stand by and support me. The remaining 25 I have not heard from yet. There is a chance that some of them simply haven't seen my post because they don't get on Facebook much, but I'm also confident that a few of them (who I know are on quite regularly) have simply stayed quiet and abandoned me. I'll admit, I thought I was ready for the pain of that loss but it's been a worse than I expected. That said, I'm not looking back.
So today for the very first time, I'm also allowing my male past and my female future to mix in the public domain. Here is the obligatory before and after collage.