A news reporter for Des Moines’ WOI Local 5 made news herself this past week when she came out as transgender.
Nora J.S. Reichardt has been a reporter for the station since last year and started her transition at the end of 2021.
She did an interview with the station to reintroduce her to the viewing public. It was the same day as her legal name change.
A Minnesota native, she told interviewer Eva Anderson that she had reached a point where she had to transition.
“Awhile after I started being on air, I kind of just reached a personal breaking point where I thought, why don’t I like the person that I am seeing every time I am going out in the field?” she said. “Why don’t I connect with that person? Why don’t I want to be that person?”
Throughout the year leading up to the interview, she started to grow out her hair, start her medical transition and come out at work. It got to the point where there was only one other group to tell.
“There was a decent span of time where everyone in my life functionally knew me as Nora, except for the viewers at home. [I felt like] I was splitting myself in two,” Reichardt said.
So, it was time to tell the viewers. The full interview below.