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After my mother died, I spent a few months feeling guilty and a few months thinking about myself - perfectly selfishly, I realise. I needed to get my head around a few things. At work, the company started to make a big thing of diversity. The law was changing; gay marriage was grabbing all the headlines because it looked as though it was going to be legalised in the UK. Trans issues were also hitting the headlines. A few high profile sportsmen had come out as gay. The whole LGBT+ thing was out in the open, on the television, in the newspapers - and at work. In 2013 I joined the company LGBT network. I didn't tell anyone, but those who were also members of the network could see that I had joined. I started to get involved on the network discussion board. So, effectively, I came out to other members of the network. Initially, I just hinted that I was bisexual. I involved myself in discussions about that topic. Later, I admitted that I had an interest in the “T” as well as the “B”. Eventually, I openly discussed being transgender as well as bisexual, within the confines of the network’s private discussion board. One day, I accidentally let something slip to a member of the team I work for, via something I said in an email. Panicking, and worried in case he said anything to the rest of the team, I immediately sent him another email, saying something along the lines of, “I think I just outed myself. How good are you at keeping secrets?” He responded by sending me a photo of him and his boyfriend. We had a short discussion and he told me that our manager was perfectly fine with him, when he’d come out. So before the end of the day, I came out to my manager. It took quite a while before I had the courage to come out to the rest of the team, but I did. And there wasn't one negative response. In fact, two were extremely positive. One guy told me that my revelation to him had inspired him. So much so, that while he usually ensures his nail polish is removed before turning up for work Monday mornings, that weekend he made the decision to leave it on, and the following Monday he arrived at work sporting sparkly blue nails. The man I had been most worried about telling sent me an email, simply saying, “High five!” and then he followed it up with another email saying, “That must have felt like jumping out of a plane without a parachute and then discovering you could fly. I'm so pleased for you.” Not one negative comment. Not one rejection. Plenty of support. I can’t explain how that made me feel. Contrast that with another time that I plucked up the courage to tell someone at work that I was bisexual. This was back in 2002. My husband and I had split up for a while and I had begun chatting with strangers online, partly because I was bored and miserable, partly for other reasons. Through the online chats I got to know someone called Sam that, initially, I thought was male but turned out to be female. She asked me out and I said yes. Back at work, a day or two later, at lunchtime, a colleague asked me what I had planned for the weekend. I thought about what I should say and then decided on the truth. I told her I was going out to meet a woman for drinks. She didn't say anything, so I asked, “Did you hear me?” to which she replied, “Yes, I heard. Do you mean like a date?” I nodded. She stood and walked away and she avoided contact with me after that. I don’t believe we have ever spoken since. I know she saw me as a woman (obviously) and therefore was probably shocked that I was meeting a woman. But that made me keep my mouth shut for another eleven years.
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