Mass email ends double life of lies and stress

Vance Kapene outed himself by email to 130 colleagues. The criminal-case flow manager for the Department for Courts in Dunedin was sick of lying to colleagues about his life. And, crucially, he had finally found a workplace where he felt safe enough to be honest.

Constantly covering up was stressful, says the Huntly-born 31-year-old, who has an ex-wife and raises his 5-year-old son.

"The downstream effect of that was that I kept an arm's length distance from colleagues. I didn't get to know them and they didn't get to know me - too dangerous."

A year ago, the burden was so great that he had to decide: keep a lid on it forever or stop pretending.

"A lie breeds lies ... and I was so tired of doing that.

"I'd found myself in a workplace that was liberal enough - the management were reasonably open-minded about pretty much everything, and I felt safe."

He told a couple of colleagues he had allowed himself to get friendly with, including his boss, who was "fantastic". They kept quiet, as requested, and Kapene found the world did not collapse around his ears.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Sharing felt "euphoric", Kapene says. "There was a sense of weightlessness ... "

But he did find it awkward, in conversation with others, having to remember who knew what: "You have to have a very good memory [to lie effectively]," he says, wryly.

Kapene decided to take the plunge and tell all his colleagues. He did not originally intend to do it by email, but he finds solace in writing down his thoughts and came up with a 1 1/2 page effort he thought worth sending as an explanation.

But he spent a week reading it "over and over" before hitting the "send" button to 130 colleagues.

Kapene expected absolute silence. What he got was a stream of people arriving at his office, congratulating him for his bravery. He believes his work improved.

And bosses supported him; without overtly focusing on Kapene, they made it clear that anything other than support for diversity was unacceptable. Kapene says his outing "is a success story".