Tory is out at work!

[Tory Aoi]

I'm excited to share with you all my fantastic experience lately.  But long story short, I came out at work and it went very well.

 

This all started a few weeks back, as I had been seriously considering coming out to a colleague of mine who has worked closely with me over the past 5 years.  We even had the same start date, so her and I have also become pretty good friends too.  I thought if there was anyone who I would want to be the first colleague I told this, I wanted it to be her.  It had been over a year since I talked with her last, and I really just wanted to catch up on things anyways.  We talked for a few minutes about various goings on, and then I told her I had something big and important to tell her.  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and when I opened them again I said "I'm transgender."  Her smile only got bigger after I said that and she said she was very proud of me for sharing that with her.  Throughout the conversation she was quite encouraging of me, telling me I should be proud of who I am.  It felt really nice having that out.

 

A week after that I was having my periodic one on one with my manager, we were wrapping up a little early so I decided I was ready and I told him the same thing.  He thanked me for telling him, had a very professional stance on it and as I told him I was planning on telling the team soon he said that I'd have his full support.

 

It was that following week (and now just 2 weeks ago) that my team was having their daily stand-up meeting and I told them I had an announcement to share at the end of the meeting.  So when my turn came for that, I could feel all those eyes on me, and I was quite honestly very nervous.  This was the first time I would ever say something like this in front of so many people (5 in this case).  I mean, it was not bad, but there was certainly an intimidation factor.  But I pushed back that fear, and I did the same breathing exercise I did previously and I managed to say it in front of them, saying that I was reintroducing myself to them.  As I calmed over that initial fearful feeling, I found myself smiling as I told them my name and pronouns, etc etc.  Everyone took the news quite well, and thanked me for my openness to share that.

 

In our HR software we have an option to declare a "preferred name," which exists for scenarios just like this.  So I submitted that request.  Sunday May 2nd, just over a week ago now, was when that request fully went through.  See this was also my 5 year anniversary working for the company, and we send out daily emails announcing birthdays and anniversaries for various people in our organization.  And I was rather pleasantly surprised to see on that list the name "Tory".

 

I've since been reaching out to a few others I've worked with over the years, just to make them aware that I haven't disappeared and I have simply changed mine name among a few other things.  And so far the response there has been quite positive.  Even more fantastic, I haven't had to explain to a single person yet why I did this.  One person even congratulated me on reaching this step in my transition.  I think I owe a lot of it to our company's culture of diversity and inclusion, but also just how mainstream trans issues have become these days.  It has been remarkable to just show up for a meeting, someone who has known me for like forever said to me "Hey Tory" as if that's the only name he's ever known me by.  That feeling just blew me away, honestly.

 

But there you have it.  I've really done it now!

[KathyLauren]

Woo-hoo!  Congratulations!

 

I always love to read a happy coming-out story.  Well done!

[Drayse]

Congratulations,

 

Coming out at work can seem so intimidating. I'm super happy things went so well for you. ?

[Tory Aoi]

Thank you @KathyLaurenand @Drayse, yeah this has really been such a huge step for me.  A few years ago I would've never imagined any of this was possible!

[Heather Shay]

@Tory Aoi That is fantastic news - proud of you. Big step with more to come.

[Tory Aoi]

@Shayyes thank you.

 

Just yesterday was another huge step.  I visited my parents for the first time since before the pandemic started, and I got to tell my dad about who I really am.  Keep in mind, he's 85, but he took the news really quite well saying that he accepts me just the way I am and that he would never disown me for that, and also that he loves me (that really hit me because he almost never says that).  I can see it will take some getting used to for him, but this is huge.  I mean, I've ruminated over this for a long time now, I even assumed he'd be likely to reject me, but he did the opposite.

 

I had to rest much of today to recover, but I am pretty happy.  I updated my profile pic, which I think really reflects how I've been feeling these days about myself.

[Heather Shay]

@Tory Aoi I just had tears of joy for you. Coming out to a parent especially an older parent and to be told they love you is so amazing. I can relate to a father never telling me he loves me and that brought out the tears.

Rest easy young lady what a wonderful weekend. Treasure it always.