At his first meeting after being elected chair of Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side, Mel Wymore had quite an announcement to make: he was no longer a woman.

Prior to declaring his new gender in April 2010, Mr. Wymore spent more than a decade serving on the community board. He realized he wanted to become a man about a month before taking the chairmanship.

“I’ve held many roles on the community board, however always in the role of a woman,” Mr. Wymore told The Observer. “I knew that I was going to be changing very overtly in front of everybody when I was elected, so on my very first meeting as chair, I announced to the community board that I would be transitioning and that they could expect changes. At the time, I said I would maintain the female pronoun until I announced otherwise and that if anyone had questions please don’t be afraid to ask me directly.” Read More