Kendra Goodson in her office for the University of Maryland's Facilities Management. (Tom Hausman/The Diamondback)

When Kendra Goodson was still a man in the summer of 2015, she and her daughter, Miranda Goodson, were at a Renaissance Festival. Goodson decided to come out then as transgender by showing her daughter a picture of herself in women’s clothing.

“Cool,” Miranda Goodson had said.

And then they went and got beers.

Goodson, a customer response center program manager, is the first Facilities Management employee at the University of Maryland to come out as transgender.

Although Goodson said she has known she is transgender since she was 10 — “as soon as I realized there was a difference between boys and girls” — she only came out to friends and family in June 2015 and at work this past May.

After returning from a cruise to Mexico in fall 2015 and facing security problems in customs, Goodson realized she had to change her legal documents, which included her payroll information. There was no way to change her name and gender on payroll without her manager knowing, so she came out at work as well.

“We always had a very, very good relationship, but this brought us even a little bit closer,” Facilities Management manager Marie Dory said. “As her manager in a working relationship, it will be my responsibility to make sure that she’s in a comfortable environment.”

Dory added that regardless of Goodson’s transition, she is still the same person.

“Kendra knows I’m there to support her all the way,” Dory said.

In June 2014, Goodson had a major heart attack and was told she shouldn’t have lived through it. At that point, she said she realized she was going to die either by medical reasons or suicide if she didn’t transition. She told her wife and kids the following June when she was told her heart was in perfect condition and “they were all accepting,” which encouraged her to come out to everyone else.

Although Goodson is a straight woman, she is still married to her wife, Kimberly James. They’ve “figured it out,” and James calls them “sister wives,” she said.

“It was difficult because I’m not gay and now she’s a girl,” James said. “She’s so much happier now that that makes all the difference in the world. She’s fantastically happy, so I’m happy for her, because I do love her.”

Miranda Goodson, who is 26 years old, said she and Kendra Goodson have done a lot of bonding “[and] ended up going shopping … a lot right after that.”

“Once I did come out to my family, my friends … I’d lost no one, and from my understanding, that’s really unheard of,” Kendra Goodson said.

None of Goodson’s family members — her wife, her daughter or her son, Brendan Goodson, who is 23 years old — said they were particularly surprised when she came out to them.

“I knew something was up, I just couldn’t put my finger on it,” Miranda Goodson said, indicating she thought Kendra Goodson may have been gay before she transitioned.

Despite her transition, Goodson’s children still call her “Dad” at home and “Kendra” in public.

“She’s always been my parent, and whether … she was male or female, it hasn’t changed how anyone in the family perceives her or how we feel about her,” Brendan Goodson said.

Others now feel comfortable discussing their own transitions with Brendan Goodson because he has a transgender parent.

“I know a couple other people who are currently transitioning and they haven’t really come out and told people,” he said. “They’re able to tell me because Kendra’s so open about it.”

Goodson said realizing how lucky she was to not lose anyone made her want to start volunteering. She now serves on the city of College Park’s Education Advisory Committee and regularly gives advice to transgender girls.

“If anybody ever gets to the point where I was, when I was laying on the couch and realized that I was going to die, and it was either [transition] or kill [myself] … the only thing that they have to fear is their imagination,” Goodson said. “It’s not as bad as people think.”

This university is “very open” toward the transgender community, Goodson said, noting that she attends speech therapy at LeFrak Hall.

The process is “a complete transformation,” Goodson said. “Everyone should be themselves.”