Jean Bryant seemed to have it all: A long career in the U.S. Forest Service as a tree cultivator, firefighter and more. A wife and two sons. A small town’s respect as a scoutmaster, volunteer firefighter and exalted ruler of the Elks Lodge. A national post as vice president of a federal employees’ union.

But as long as people saw Bryant as a man, she didn’t have what mattered most:

Herself.

Bryant knew her true gender before she was in kindergarten but cloaked herself in a man’s life. “It was not safe for me, so I invested very heavily in living the kind of life that would allow me to survive,” she says, her eyes glinting.

Transitioning, especially as a pillar of her Northwest community, seemed out of the question. “I thought I would end up living under a bridge, that I wouldn’t have anyone.”

Soon enough, events would force the issue. Bryant would learn how challenging and rewarding becoming herself would be.

“My world came crashing down”

For most of her life, Bryant cross-dressed in secret. After she retired from the Forest Service in 2012, she had more time alone. Her wife still worked as a nurse traveling to small school districts in eastern Washington. “I found myself spending more and more time honoring my female persona and growing more comfortable with that,” Bryant says.

One day, Bryant’s wife asked Bryant to load things in her car for an overnight trip. Propped on the back seat, “almost like you’d leave a note for somebody to make sure they saw it,” was a book on transgenderism.

“My world came crashing down,” Bryant says. “I thought, ‘She must know. It’s oozing out. I haven’t kept it secret enough. She’s sending me this signal.’”

Panicked, she sat at her kitchen table that night with a loaded revolver. She put it in her mouth and pulled back the hammer.

“At that moment, I sensed so strongly a voice that said, ‘You don’t want to do this. … It will be the wrong thing for your soul.’” She put the gun down.

When her wife returned the next morning, “I just said, ‘We have to talk,’” Bryant says. “I just spit it out.” Her wife listened, mouth open, for three hours. When Bryant finished, “she just looked at me and said, ‘Well, that explains a lot.’”

Their relationship had always been more platonic than romantic. “She realized at that moment why that full depth never manifested itself — I was a cardboard cutout of an image, a role I was trying to play.”

The book, it turned out, had nothing to do with Bryant. Her wife was reading it to help a teenager in one of her schools. But it ended up helping Bryant, too. Once the truth was out, “the sense of relief was huge.”

Family and friends stick with her

Bryant began transitioning with counseling and hormone therapy. After four or five months, she told her grown sons. “One was like, ‘Far out, what do you want me to call you now?’ ” she says. “The other one grilled me. It took him months to come around.”

Bryant’s wife stayed for two years but ended their 35-year marriage after Bryant decided to have surgery. They remain friends. They share an old pickup and help each other with yardwork and other chores. Bryant still attends gatherings with her ex-wife’s family. Her sons, who call her Jean, don’t live close but stay in touch.

“My family stayed intact,” she says, tearing up.

“I have to give back”

Bryant speaks directly and with a firm gaze, but she also smiles easily and sprinkles her conversation with self-deprecating humor. “Don’t let the Revlon fool you,” she says. “I’m 66 years old.”

She now uses her kind but plainspoken manner to help others in transition. “I feel like I’m called as a missionary,” she says. “I can’t believe how privileged I am — economically, socially, educationally. I have to give back.”

Bryant co-hosts a radio show on transgender issues. She also volunteers with OHSU’s Transgender Health Program, teaching classes and providing peer support. Through the Here4You program she helped design, she joins surgery patients at appointments and helps them find their way around OHSU. She also stays in touch by phone — sometimes for hours at a time — for months after their surgeries.

Amy Penkin, Transgender Health Program clinical program manager, says Bryant is an “incredibly compassionate person.” Bryant shares her experiences, Penkin says, but leaves room for patients “to have their own perspective and their own journey.”

Bryant’s journey continues, too. She doesn’t know where life as Jean Bryant will take her, but she’s eager to explore the possibilities. She still loves the outdoors — sailing, kayaking, hiking, fishing and, occasionally, golfing. “Now I get to legitimately hit from the ladies’ tees,” she says.

She’s also relieved that she’s no longer living a lie.

“Not a single one of the boogeymen I thought would come out from under the bed has manifested itself,” she says. “I almost hate to admit how — I wouldn’t say easy — how smooth transition has been for me.”

— By Pete Lesage, a Tigard writer and editor who previously worked as a reporter, editor and director at The Oregonian.