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" In my opinion, there&amp;#039;s never been a better time to come forward as a LGBT individual in an environment that would have been hostile towards it just ten years ago. Things have changed post-Glee, post-Jason Collins, post-Brittney Griner, post-Laura Jane Grace, post-a whole other bunch of positive stuff for the LGBT community that I&amp;#039;m probably forgetting. However, the T in LGBT \u2013 transgender \u2013 is probably the least-understood frontier and last to be accepted by the mainstream. But that ignorance may end if more prominent people speak out about it: ABC News editor and producer Don Ennis announced last week that she would be leaving her wife of 17 years, Wendy, and, at 49 years old, starting over as a woman (Dawn), reports the New York Post. And the reveal was full-throttle awesome: She walked into her office on Friday in a &amp;quot;little black dress&amp;quot; and a brunette bobbed wig and announced to colleagues that from now on, she would like to be known as Dawn. Dawn wrote on her Facebook: &amp;quot;Please understand: This is not a game of dress-up, or make-believe. It is my affirmation of who I now am and what I must do to be happy, in response to a soul-crushing secret that my wife and I have been dealing with for more than seven years, mostly in secret.&amp;quot; As for Dawn&amp;#039;s wife, she sounds extraordinarily understanding about the whole thing. &amp;quot;Despite the heartbreak, [Wendy] has encouraged me to start this new life that we both believe better fits who I now am. Trust me, this is NOT the midlife crisis I was counting on \u2014 I&amp;#039;d much prefer to have bought a sports car. Even an affair, I think, would have been something we might have recovered from.&amp;quot; Ennis attributes her desire to live as a woman to a &amp;quot;rare hormone imbalance&amp;quot; thanks to the female hormones that her mother gave her as a child actor. Best of luck to her. Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw Image via Facebook/Twitter "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a12780/abc-dawn-ennis-transgender/>