A news reporter for an ABC affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa who felt like she was previously “splitting myself in two” told viewers this week that she is a transgender woman.
Nora J.S. Reichardt appeared in a live package on WOI-DT to talk about her personal journey and how she used to be “just a person almost wearing my body, not living in it.” She’s worked for the station since July of 2021. “I am a transgender woman living in Des Moines,” Reichardt said. “For a long time I didn’t think I would get to stay that, at least not on air like this.
I didn’t know there was a place in a space for me to do this sort of work I have come to work and enjoy while getting to be myself when doing it.” Reichardt recalled growing up in a rural Minnesota town and not having the “language to describe” how she was feeling.
She also remembers being “anxious for as long as I can remember.” “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?