A local TV reporter in Des Moines, Iowa, took the brave step this week of revealing to viewers that she is a transgender woman. Nora J.S. Reichardt, 24, who has worked for Local 5 News for a year, said almost everyone in her life had come to know her as Nora—“except for the viewers at home.” “I reached a personal breaking point of, ‘Why don’t I like the person I see every time I’m going out into the field?’” Reichardt said. “‘Why don’t I connect with that person? Why don’t I want to be that person?” Reichardt said she started “having thoughts” in high school but lived in a rural area where she “didn’t even have the language to describe what I was feeling.” She started counseling last September and has since undergone hormone replacement therapy. “My mom told me that she doesn’t think she’s ever seen me this happy and I feel the same way,” she said, adding that she felt “the most excited I’ve ever been to get back to work.”
