The Facebook Stories application, which highlights the various experiences of the more than 500 million Facebook users around the world, featured an essay by Kai Bailey in which she recounts coming out as transgender to most of her friends with a Facebook post. Kai's essay, "Coming Out in a Single Click," recounts her experience on June 2, 2012, as she sat with her partner, Leigh, preparing to hit the "Share" button on a post composed of text and photos that would inform her friends that she is proud to be trans.
Kai writes, "Leigh grabbed my hand, and together we clicked the mouse...The seconds that followed were adrenaline-soaked, and my eyes flicked to the notification bar to wait for some tiny binary token of acceptance from a friend. It came. Cracking a smile I said aloud, “Steve likes that I’m trans. That’s lovely.” Then came another, and another and thirty-some more. Boys, girls, best friends, coworkers, even ex-girlfriends (my "retroactively bisexual" friends) clicked like as that token of support. Soon I had opened up lines of dialogue with friends I hadn’t spoken to in ages. I finally shared my happiness openly as I realized the people in my life are so much cooler than I regularly give them credit for. The day continued like any other, but “it” was finally over: I was out to everyone, and didn’t have to hide any more."
After coming out, Kai became involved with the We Happy Trans project, which works to counter negative stereotypes by sharing positive stories of the many different transgender expereiences through user-created videos and other media. Kai contributed a video to the project, which you can view here. To read Kai's full essay on coming out, visit Facebook Stories here.