Coming out to friends and family is never easy. For some, it’s nearly impossible. For one wife, coming out to her co-workers was even harder. But the reaction she got back was truly amazing. Meet Zoe. She’s a wife, a mother and a hard worker.
Zoe is transgender and she came out to her family last summer. She then eventually spread the news to her extended family, friends, and neighbours. Her husband notes that she is a beautiful, feminine person that everyone adores.
The process of telling people hasn’t been as smooth as you would think, but what story is? It’s a challenging process telling people your personal, deep story and making sure that people won’t judge. Luckily for Zoe, everyone has truly been supportive and amazing to her. But there is one group of people that she didn’t tell.
You see, Zoe works in a huge technology company and she felt nervous telling the team. The managing team is mainly a team of software developers that are predominantly male. She’s known her co-workers and employees for about 15 years or so.
Zoe’s fear is that her co-workers have been calling her “he” and “him” and “Mr.” for as long as she can remember. She has no idea how they will handle the change. Totally valid fear if you ask me!
Even though the laws in Ontario, Canada protect the rights of transgender employees, that doesn’t necessarily protect them from quiet judgment, awkwardness and the potential loss of friendships.
But because this transition needed to happen for Zoe, she had to tell her co-workers sooner or later. So she decided to make a coming-out email and eventually sent it out to everyone that she works with.
But turns out, that Zoe had nothing to worry about after all. The support was more than she could even imagine. She got about 75 amazing responses from co-workers, both locally and internationally.
Zoe decided to take some days off of work, taking an entire week off of work and then working from home. However, eventually, she went back into the office. She was clearly still worried about the awkwardness that might happen when she walks into the office. Totally understandable.
Her partner wrote on Upworthy.com that she was just as nervous for her. Even though they both knew how kind and supportive her colleagues truly were, both were super nervous. Her partner continued writing, saying that she told her to text with updates and she was even prepared to go down there if she needed him.
Pintee
As soon as she walked in, her co-workers not only showed her something but showed the rest of society how they should act towards people who don’t fit the mould of society. It just might bring tears to your eyes.
Zoe was welcomed with an incredible surprise. As soon as she walked in, her cubicle was decorated by a few co-workers with adorable butterflies and other colourful, sparkly decorations. It looks absolutely adorable.
They also made it a point to write her name everywhere they could around the office. To make it known that she was ZOE! On top of all this, they got her a beautiful flower that had a card attached to it, that said “Welcome Zoe”.
They even left a little framed quote that will honestly make you shed a few more tears. It said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken”. That is a pretty deep and famous quote by Oscar Wilde.
On top of all this, her partner noted that at about 10 a.m. there was a “meeting” that was called and instead it happened to be a coming-out party in order to welcome her back to work as her true self. There were cupcakes, coffee and a ton of hugs and handshakes. So sweet!
