I hadn’t expected to be writing about this today.

Yesterday, I had a call with one of the people on the company’s Pride Committee. She’d been talking about the coming out stories I’d written for the intranet – and with my permission, she’d shared them with HR. She was concerned, particularly about the second piece, which mentions self-harm and suicide, and wanted to check in with HR about any potential safeguarding concerns.

I appreciated the care being taken – not just for me, but for how the piece might land in a workplace context. I daresay there was a bit of “we don’t want to deal with fallout if people don’t react well,” but… fair enough. I can forgive that. For now, at least.

HR’s biggest concern was that I might be making myself too vulnerable, especially in the context of coming out as a eunuch-gendered person – a term and identity that’s still deeply unfamiliar to most people. They worried about professional repercussions, especially as this is the company’s first ever Pride initiative. If people struggle with the ‘vanilla’ aspects of Pride content, how might they respond to something this complex?

At the time, I agreed that we should hold back the second article – I even said, “there’s always next year.” But now I’m wondering if I should have said “publish it.” I still might. There’s time. We’ll see how the rest of the Pride content is received – and how people respond to the first half of my coming out story.

I wrote that second piece not just for myself, but for others like me — gender-diverse people who are struggling to feel visible, valid, or safe. I don’t want to let them down. But I also want to do this carefully, in a way that keeps the door open for the future.

They were also concerned about how I’d reflected on religion in my story. I offered to clarify that it wasn’t religious people who caused me problems, but my assumptions about how they would react. That suggestion seemed to go down well – and it was a useful prompt for a bit more self-reflection on my part too!

One of the reasons I’m inclined to cooperate with the request is that I see this company doing, not just saying. This isn’t rainbow capitalism. This is a genuine effort to support LGBTQIA+ employees – and I don’t want to jeopardise that by pushing too hard, too fast.

But what truly floored me about the call was something else entirely: for the first time, I saw someone moved by my writing. I’ve had messages from colleagues saying the stories meant a lot to them – but seeing it on someone’s face, hearing the emotion in their voice? That was something else. That moment cracked something open in me.

I cried.

I write for the sake of understanding – to make sense of the world, and of myself. But yesterday, for the first time, I saw what it means to be witnessed. Not just read. Seen.